Author(s): Yonggui Wu; Chuxia Lin; Lixia Zhu
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Ecotoxicological assessment; Daphnia carinata; Daphnia magna; Phototactic behavior; Acid mine drainage; Bioassay
Abstract: It is shown in this paper that the Daphnia carinata clone DC42 was superior to the widely used Daphnia magna for ecotoxicity testing in terms of sensitivity to toxicants, easiness of culturing and more importantly the ecological relevance to tropical and subtropical aquatic environments. The preliminary results show that good relationship exists between the D carinata’s phototaxis index (Ip) and the concentration of standard toxicant. It was also found that the phototactic behaviour of the 2 day-old D. carinata (Clone DC42) was genetically very stable and this makes Ip a potentially useful biomarker for development of rapid and undestructive analytical methods for ecotoxicity testing of contaminants in aquatic environments. The applications of D. carinata in a few cases suggest that this Daphnia species can be used as a test organism for ecotoxicological assessment of contaminated water, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions.
Year: 2005