Abstract

Current aquatic environmental risk assessment of plant protection products or biocides does not consider effects on organisms involved in leaf litter breakdown, a fundamental ecosystem process in streams. Therefore, direct ecotoxicological implications of tebuconazole, a frequently used triazole fungicide, on the leaf-shredding amphipod Gammarus fossarum, were assessed. While acute toxicity was low (96h-LC(50) = 1347 mu g/L), feeding rate, a sublethal endpoint, was significantly reduced after seven days of exposure to 600 mu g/L. At the same concentration, but during a three week exposure under semi-static conditions, gammarids showed significant reductions in feeding, but also in assimilation and growth. At 200 mu g/L, however, only assimilation was significantly affected. As these endpoints can be used to evaluate the ecotoxicity of a broad range of chemicals and to deduce possible implications in the functioning of ecosystems, the inclusion of similar experimental set-ups might further improve aquatic environmental risk assessment. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Gammarus; Shredder; Triazole fungicide; Sublethal endpoints; Environmental risk assessment; Confidence interval testing

Published in

Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety
2010, Volume: 73, number: 7, pages: 1674-1680
Publisher: ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE

UKÄ Subject classification

Other Biological Topics


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2010.07.046

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/63627