Snail as sentinel organism for monitoring the environmental pollution; a review

Abstract Environmental pollution, one of the most serious problems facing human health, ecosystems and biodiversity, is defined as the contamination of the physical and biological components of the atmosphere system which has harmful consequences for normal environmental processes. Animals, such as snails used as environmental pollution biomonitors, show multiple physiological mechanisms to counteract the effects of toxins in the environment due to their sensitivity to various contaminants and their ability to accumulate them through their tissues. The objective of this review is to explore the possibility of using different types of snails as potential and ideal monitoring matrices to assess air pollution and to detect heavy metal and POPs concentration by different extraction techniques including Soxhlet extraction, Accelerated Solvent Extraction, Solid Phase Extraction, Microwave-Assisted Extraction, Pressurized Hot Water extraction and Microwave Acid Digestion.