In this study, the amphipod Corophium volutator and the polychaete Arenicola marina were evaluated as test organisms for use in sediment toxicity tests by adapting standard protocols developed by the EPA/COE and Thain et al. (1994) respectively for conducting 10-day sediment toxicity tests. Although these species have been used to assess the toxicity of marine and estuarine sediments, the detailed ecotoxicologies of these animals are not well documented. In particular, the effects of specific contaminants of known concentrations on this bioassay are not known. Here, I report several experiments carried out using clean intertidal sediment contaminated with the heavy metals copper, zinc and cadmium, and employing the Corophium and the Arenicola bioassay protocol. Concentrations of copper, zinc and cadmium were determined in tissues of Corophium exposed for 4 and 10 days to contaminated sediment using four protocols to allow for any material present in the gut. Significant differences in metal concentrations occurred between the protocols where gut contents were removed and those where they were left intact. These findings have implications for the way in which analyses of metal burdens are carried out for invertebrates in ecotoxicological work. Corophium survival in seawater with dissolved copper, zinc and cadmium was higher in the presence of sediment than without sediment, although the concentrations of these metals in Corophium tissues were the same in both cases. Bioconcentration factors (BCF) were inversely related to seawater concentrations of copper, zinc and cadium, with the lowest exposure concentration, (0.1 mg l-1 for both copper and zinc, 0.01 mg l-1 cadmium) having the highest BCF. Both live amphipods and those that had died accumulated copper, zinc and cadmium in their bodies during the bioassay, and bioconcentration factors were always higher for dead than for living amphipods for each metal.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:245360 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Bat, Levent |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk/R?func=search-advanced-go&find_code1=WSN&request1=AAIU083075 |
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