Acute toxicity of para‐nonylphenol to saltwater animals

Abstract

para‐Nonylphenol (PNP), a mixture of alkylphenols used in producing nonionic surfactants, is distributed widely in surface waters and aquatic sediments, where it can affect saltwater species. This article describes a database for acute toxicity of PNP derived for calculating a national saltwater quality criterion. Using a flow‐through exposure system with measured concentrations, we tested early life stages of four species of saltwater invertebrates and two species of fish. Static 96‐h tests were also conducted on zoeal Homarus americanus, embryo‐larval Mulinia lateralis, and larval Pleuronectes americanus. The number of organisms surviving the flow‐through test was measured at 2, 4, 8, and 12 h and daily through day 7. Mortality for most species plateaued by 96 h. The ranked sensitivities (96‐h 50% lethal concentrations, measured in micrograms per liter) for the species tested were 17 for Pleuronectes americanus, 37.9 (48‐h 50% effective concentration) for Mulinia lateralis, 59.4 for Paleomonetes vulgaris, 60.6 for Americamysis bahia (formerly Mysidopsis bahia), 61.6 for Leptocheirus plumulosos, 70 for Menidia beryllina, 71 for Homarus americanus, 142 for Cyprinodon variegatus, and > 195 for Dyspanopius sayii. Values for the seven most sensitive of these species ranged over a factor of only 4.2. The narrow range of responses for PNP implies that exceeding a threshold concentration would endanger a large proportion of the aquatic community.

Acute toxicity of nonylphenols and bisphenol A to the embryonic development of the abalone Haliotis diversicolor supertexta

“…These values were lower than that for previously reported species, which were 59.4 lg L -1 for Paleomonetes vulgaris, 60.6 lg L -1 for Americamysis bahia, 61.6 lg L -1 for Leptocheirus plumulosos, 70 lg L -1 for Menidia beryllina, 71 lg L -1 for Homarus americanus, 142 lg L -1 for Cyprinodon variegatus, more than 195 lg L -1 for Dyspanopius sayii (Lussier et al 2000), 5.4 mg L -1 for Fundulus heteroclitus (Kelly and Di Giulio 2000) and 263 lg L -1 for Daphnia magna (Zhang et al 2003). These results indicated that the embryogenesis of H. diversicolor supertexta was more sensitive to NPs than other species.…”

“…Most reported effects of EDCs, such as feminization and intersex of fish, alteration of sex ratio in favour of female oysters and reproductive failure of water birds (Kavanagh et al 2004;Tyler et al 1998), are caused by long-term exposure. Acute toxic effects of EDCs are mainly observed at the population level, including growth inhibition, morphological abnormality and lethality, and can be of great ecological significance (Alexander et al 1988;Lussier et al 2000;Quinn et al 2006). However, the possibility for EDCs to cause acute toxicity in aquatic organisms has been assumed to be extremely low due to the inconsistency between their effective and detected environmental concentrations (Hirano et al 2004;Hong and Li 2007).…”