Acute toxicological effects of suspended solids on phytoplankton and zooplankton

Abstract:

In this research, an acute toxicity experiment was carried out to study the effects of different concentrations of suspended solids on the growth of phytoplankton and zooplankton. Phytoplankton, Skeletonema costatum and Nitzschia closterium, and zooplankton captured by plankton trawl in Jiaozhou Bay with the dominant species of Barnacle nauplii,Calanus sinicus，Oithona similis, and Paracalanus parvus, were used as the experimental organisms. The results showed that the effects of different concentrations of suspended solids on the growth of S. costatum and N. closterium were highly significant (P<0.01). Linear relationship was found between the concentration of suspended solids and the inhibition rate on the growth of S. costatum and N. closterium, with the half inhibition concentration 48 h-EC50 as 1.58 g/L (R=0.977) and 96 h-EC50 as 2.82 g/L (R=0.993) for S. costatum; 48 h-EC50 as 4.27 g/L (R=0.933) and 96 h-EC50 as 4.47 g/L (R=0.939) for N. closterium. Experiments on zooplankton showed that the suspended solids also had a significant impact on the growth of zooplankton with the lethal concentration of 96 h-LC50 as 60.172 mg/L.