The current work determined whether there is a constant tissue residue associated with narcotic compounds. In this investigation, the cladoceran, Daphnia magna was exposed to lethal levels (48h LC50) of ten, $ sp{14}$C-labelled, narcotic organic chemicals in a closed system. Exposure times, ambient concentrations, and body sizes were varied to evaluate their effects. The $ sp{14}$C-method developed in current work can detect chemicals in single D. magna in concentrations ranging from 0.02 to 6310 mmol/kg. Moreover, the technique detected phobic and lipophilic chemicals equally well. The technique's sensitivity (nmol/kg) allowed for detection of differences in the internal concentrations of pollutants among the unaffected, immobilized, and dead D. magna. Immobilized D. magna contained between 0.14 mmol/kg and 200 mmol/kg of narcotics. On the average, however, the internal residues were 3.1 mmol/kg (95%CL = 3.1 $ pm$ 2.0). This agreed with literature values. The effects of time of exposure, ambient concentration, and body size on the tissue residues of narcotics varied with the chemical compound.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.69519 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Pawlisz, Andrew V. |
| Contributors | Peters, Robert H. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Biology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001339479, proquestno: AAIMM87812, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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