Implications of water hardness in ecotoxicological assessments for water quality regulatory purposes: a case study with the aquatic snail Biomphalaria glabrata (Say, 1818)

Brazilian Journal of Biology

Ec Oliveira-filho¹  Nr Caixeta¹  Ncs Simplício¹  Sr Sousa¹  Tp Aragão¹  Dhf Muniz¹ 

关键词: ecotoxicology;    biological assays;    standard methods;    guidelines;    environmental factors;    ecotoxicologia;    ensaios biológicos;    métodos padrão;    protocolos;    fatores ambientais;   

DOI  :  10.1590/1519-6984.24212

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

Water hardness is a property depending on the presence of alkaline earth metals, mainly calcium and magnesium. Among the strategies for water quality monitoring, ecotoxicological assays are performed to minimize impacts and classify water bodies. For these laboratory evaluations parameters are previously defined in the guidelines, including water hardness for both cultivation and testing medium. The present work was performed to evaluate the effects of different levels of water hardness on the survival and reproduction of the freshwater snail Biomphalaria glabrata and discuss the influence of natural water hardness on the results of ecotoxicological tests with these environmental samples. Comparing the groups it was possible to observe that those maintained in waters with least hardness had lower reproductive success, while the groups maintained in highest hardness showed better reproduction. These data show that waters with low hardness make the reproduction of the snail B. glabrata unfeasible, and this reveal a problem for ecotoxicity assays using natural water samples.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
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