Fluctuating Asymmetry: An Early Warning Indicator of Environmental Stress

抄録

To ensure sustainable development of our environment, it is important to maintain its health. We, therefore, need indicators or markers that tell us if our environment is stressed even before actual deterioration of its quality takes place. Measuring the physico-chemical changes in an environment is one way of determining environmental quality. However, these usually do not have much meaning unless they are measured in relation to the biological health of the living organisms in that environment. Fluctuating asymmetry appears to be a good bioindicator of the state of environmental quality. This is an easy to do and inexpensive way of determining if the environment is capable of sustainable development. Preliminary data measuring the fluctuating asymmetry of the gill rakers, pelvic fins and pectoral fins of the Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus from two lakes in the Philippines indicate that fluctuating asymmetry may indeed be a good bioindicator of the quality of an environment.