Abstract-An integrative assessment was conducted in the Puckett's Creek watershed of southwestern Virginia, USA, to investigate the environmental impacts of acid mine drainage (AMD) inputs. Twenty-one sampling stations were categorized into groups based on five degrees of AMD input: (1) none, (2) intermittent acidic/circum-neutral AMD, (3) continuous acidic AMD, (4) continuous circum-neutral AMD, and (5) receiving system stations with at least two levels of dilution. Bioassessment techniques included water/sediment chemistry, benthic macroinvertebrate sampling, laboratory acute water column toxicity testing, laboratory chronic sediment toxicity testing, and in situ toxicity testing with Asian clams (Corbicula fluminea [Müller]). Group 3 stations had significantly altered water chemistry (low pH, high conductivity, and high water column metals) relative to the other groups and significantly higher sediment iron concentrations. Both group 3 and group 4 stations had significantly decreased ephemeropteraplecoptera-trichoptera richness and percent ephemeroptera abundance relative to unimpacted stations. Group 3 stations also had decreased total taxon richness. Water column toxicity testing was sensitive to AMD impacts, with samples from group 3 stations being significantly more toxic than those from groups 2 and 4, which in turn were more toxic than those from groups 1 and 5. Similar results were observed for in situ toxicity testing. No differences in sediment toxicity test survival and impairment results were observed among the station groups. Stepwise multiple linear regression and simple bivariate correlation analyses were used to select parameters for use in an ecotoxicologic rating system, which was successful in differentiating between two levels of environmental impact relative to stations receiving no AMD input.
Semiempirical models are useful for interpreting the response of aquatic organisms to toxicants as a function of exposure concentration and duration. Most applications predict cumulative mortality at the end of the test for constant exposure concentrations. Summary measures, such as the median lethal concentration, are then estimated as a function of concentration. Real-world exposures are not constant. Effects may depend on pulse timing, and cumulative analysis based only on integrated exposure concentration is not sufficient to interpret results. We undertook a series of pulsed-exposure experiments using standard toxicological protocols and interpreted the results (mortality, biomass, and reproduction) using a dynamic generalization of a Mancini/Breck--type model that includes two compartments, one for internal concentration as a function of exposure and one for site-of-action concentration or accumulated damage as a function of the internal dose. At exposure concentrations near the effects level, the model explained approximately 50% of the variability in the observed time history of survival, 43% of the change in biomass, and 83% of the variability in net reproduction. Unexplained variability may result from differences in organism susceptibility, amplified by the effects of small sample sizes in standard tests. The results suggest that response is sensitive to prior conditions and that constant-exposure experiments can underestimate the risk from intermittent exposures to the same concentration. For pulsed exposures, neither the average nor the maximum concentration alone is an adequate index of risk, which depends on both the magnitude, duration, and timing of exposure pulses. Better understanding about the impacts of pulsed exposures will require use of experimental protocols with significantly greater numbers of replicates.
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