We developed an inductance-based valvometry technique as a detection system to measure the valve daily activity in freshwater clam Corbicula fluminea in response to waterborne arsenic. Our findings reveal that C. fluminea experiences a valve opening in the absence of arsenic predominantly in the morning hours (03:00-08:00) with a mean daily opening/closing period of 21.32 (95% CI: 20.58-22.05) h. Amplification of daily activity occurred in the presence of arsenic. Behavioral toxicity assays revealed arsenic detection thresholds of 0.60 (95% CI: 0.53-0.66) mg l(-1) and 0.35 (95% CI: 0.30-0.40) mg l(-1) for response times of 60 and 300 min, respectively. The proposed valve daily activity model was linked with response time-specific Hill dose-response functions to predict valve opening/closing behavior in response to arsenic. The predictive capabilities were verified satisfactory with the measurements. Our results implicate a biomonitoring system by valve daily activity in C. fluminea to identify safe water uses in areas with elevated arsenic.
The objective of this paper is to employ biotic ligand model (BLM) to link between acute copper (Cu) toxicity and its effect on valve closure behavior of freshwater clam Corbicula fluminea in order to further support for the BLM that potentially offers a rapid and cost-effective method to conduct the acute toxicity tests for freshwater clam exposed to waterborne Cu. Reanalysis of published experimental data of C. fluminea closure daily rhythm and dose-response profiles based on the laboratory-acclimated clams showed that a BLM-based Hill model best described the free Cu(2+)-activity-valve closure response relationships. Our proposed Cu-BLM-Corbicula model shows that free ionic form of waterborne Cu binds specifically to a biotic ligand (i.e., clam gills) and impairs normal valve closure behavior, indicating that a fixed-level of metal accumulation at a biotic ligand is required to elicit specific biological effects. With derived mechanistic-based Cu-BLM-Corbicula model, we show that the site-specific EC50(t) and valve closure behavior at any integrated time can be well predicted, indicating that our model has the potential to develop a biomonitoring system as a bioassay tool to on-line measure waterborne Cu levels in aquatic systems. Our results confirm that BLM can be improved to analytically and rigorously describe the bioavailable fraction of metal causing toxicity to valve closure behavior in freshwater C. fluminea. We suggest that the Cu-BLM-Corbicula model can be used to assist in developing technically defensible site-specific water quality criteria and performing ecological risk assessment and to promote more focused and efficient uses of resources in the regulation and control of metals and the protection of the aquatic ecosystems.
Arsenic is a potent human carcinogen of skin, lung, and urinary bladder. Freshwater clam Corbicula fluminea is a commercially important native species in Taiwan. C. fluminea is also a suitable biomonitoring test organism. Little is known, however, about the actual effects of arsenic on C. fluminea. The objectives of this study were to provide information on the acute toxicity and bioaccumulation kinetics of arsenic in C. fluminea. We carried out a 14-day exposure experiment to obtain bioaccumulation parameters. Uptake was very rapid when C. fluminea was first exposed and then slightly decayed during the uptake phase of the experiment and an uptake rate constant of 1.718 +/- 6.70 (mean +/- SE) mL g(-1) d(-1) was estimated. The elimination of arsenic from C. fluminea obeyed first-order depuration kinetics (r(2) = 0.85, p < 0.05) with a calculated half-life of 6.80 days. The derived bioaccumulation factor of 16.84 suggests that arsenic has a high potential for bioaccumulation in C. fluminea. This had important implications for dietary exposure of arsenic to humans who eat contaminated clams, because the soft tissue usually constitutes the majority of tissue consumed. The 96-h LC50 value was estimated to be 20.74 (95% CI: 11.74-30.79) mg L(-1) obtained from a 7-day acute toxicity bioassay. We also kinetically linked an acute toxicity model and a Hill sigmoid model to reconstruct an internal effect concentration based dose-response profile to assess the effect of soft tissue arsenic burden on the C. fluminea mortality. This result could be used to support the establishment of an ecological risk assessment to prevent possible ecosystem and human health consequences.
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