Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 6.6
Examples of chronic toxicity bioassays using fi eld-collected whole sediment in a variety of taxa.
Sentinel organism
Measured chemicals
Biomarker
Reference
Polychaetes
Hediste diversicolour
Metals
Behaviour; AChE; LDH;
GST; SOD
Moreira
et al.
(2006)
Molluscs
Manilla clam (
Tapes
semidecussatus
)
Metals
Lipofuchsin
accumulation
Burial activity
Insects
Condition indices
Byrne & O'Halloran
(2000)
Chironomus riparius
Metals
Bioaccumulation
Roulier
et al.
(2008)
Crustaceans
Copepod (
Amphiascus
tenuiremis
)
PAHs, PCB, metals
Reproductive success
Chandler & Green
(1996)
Amphipod (
Ampelisca
abdita
)
PAHs, organotins
HSPs
Werner
et al.
(1998)
Various amphipods
PAHs
Survival; behaviour;
community structure
Lenihan
et al.
(1995)
Fish
Turbot (S
cophthalmus
maximus
)
PAHs, metals
DNA damage; EROD
Kilemade
et al.
(2004);
Hartl
et al.
(2006)
Senegalese sole (
Solea
senegalensis
)
PAHs, metals
EROD; metallothioneins
Jimenez-Tenorio
et al.
(2007)
AChE, acetylcholine esterase; LDH, lactatedehydrogenase; GST, glutathione S-transferase; SOD, superoxide dismutase; HSPs, heat-
shock proteins; PAHs, polycyclic hydrocarbon; PCBs, polycyclic biphenols; EROD, ethoxyresorufi n-
O
-deethylase.
redox potential discontinuity, which can be highly
variable (Luoma & Ho 1998). Where required, it is
recommended that homogenized sediments should
be stored at 4 °C for an absolute minimum, but for
no longer than two weeks (Shuba
et al.
1978; ASTM
1990; Luoma & Ho 1998).
Although far more time-consuming, expensive and
diffi cult to standardize than tier 1 tests using sedi-
ment extracts (see above), whole-sediment toxicity
tests are considered to be more relevant, because they
provide more realistic chronic exposure pathways
(Hartl
et al.
2005). Chronic bioassays should ideally
use exposures spanning multiple organism life cycles
(Luoma 1995). A limitation of whole-sediment toxic-
ity tests is the development of “bottle effects”, where
owing to the closed nature in the test system, redox
conditions change over time that can make chronic
exposure bioassays diffi cult to perform (Luoma &
Ho 1998).
Thus, depending on the life expectancy of the test
organism, chronic whole-sediment toxicity bioassays
are often at best “sub-chronic”, which can under-
estimate chronic toxicity by several orders of magni-
tude, a fact that must be considered when developing
model systems for predicting sediment toxicity (Pesch
& Stewart 1980).
In addition, most sediment toxicity tests are unable
to establish causality to one contaminant or contami-
nant group because of contaminant interaction,
exhibiting, synergistic, additive, or antagonistic
effects. Among methods aimed at addressing this
problem are sediment manipulation techniques that
eliminate the effects of certain contaminant groups,
thus allowing the empirical identifi cation of causal
agents. Promising approaches at toxicity identifi ca-
tion evaluation (TIE) of sediments contaminated
with complex mixtures include the following: (1) the
use of anionic exchange resins that reduce the con-
centrations and toxicity of sediment-associated
metals but have negligible effects on ammonia and
non-polar constituents (Burgess
et al.
2000, 2007);
(2) the removal of ammonia from interstitial water
through the addition of intact fronds of sea lettuce,
Ulva lactuca
(Ho
et al.
1999) or zeolite (Burgess
