The use of a test battery in marine ecotoxicology: The acute toxicity of sodium dodecyl sulfate

Abstract

For a toxicity assessment of substances entering the marine environment, it is preferable to carry out ecotoxicological tests on a base-set of taxa utilizing target species belonging to different trophic levels. In this study a battery composed of Vibrio fischeri (bacteria), Dunaliella tertiolecta (algae), Tigriopus fulvus (crustacea), Paracentrotus lividus (echinodermata), and Dicentrarchus labrax (pisces) was used for acute toxicity testing of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). SDS is an anionic surfactant widely employed in industry, agriculture, and domestic usage and therefore is found in abundance in the environment, particularly in the sea. The mean values of EC50 obtained were 2.6, 4.8, 7.4, 3.2, 7.3 mg L(-1), respectively, for V. fischeri, D. tertiolecta, T. fulvus, P. lividus, and D. labrax. The results indicate the high acute toxicity of SDS with respect to all the trophic levels represented by the target species. In addition, they highlight the usefulness of employing a base-set of taxa rather than a single species in toxicological tests, in order to obtain more reliable information for the evaluation of toxicity and potential hazards to the marine environment of selected substances.

Isolation of Surfactant-Resistant Pseudomonads from the Estuarine Surface Microlayer

“…Concentrations much lower than those tested in this work have demonstrated to strongly inhibit free-living bacteria. Values of LC 50 for SDS were estimated to be 9.02×10 -3 mM for Vibrio fischeri [47] and 5.00×10 -3 mM for Acinetobacter junii [31]. The sewage sludge isolates Acinetobacter johnsonii and Oligotropha According to the obtained genotypes, the isolates were assigned to 16 genotypes.…”

Toxicity of anionic and cationic surfactant to Acinetobacter junii in pure culture

“…In another study consisting of various taxa, the EC 50 value obtained for the bacterium Vibrio fischeri was 2.6 mg L −1 of SDS, corresponding to 9.02 × 10 −6 mol L −1 . The V. fischeri proved to be the most sensitive organism in the study evaluating different species of bacteria, algae, crustaceans, echinoderms and fish [3]. Higher organisms also showed sensitivity to the surfactants, with symptoms including acute toxicity (microorganisms) [3,16], behavioural changes (fish) [17], and skin damage (humans) [18,19].…”

“…The V. fischeri proved to be the most sensitive organism in the study evaluating different species of bacteria, algae, crustaceans, echinoderms and fish [3]. Higher organisms also showed sensitivity to the surfactants, with symptoms including acute toxicity (microorganisms) [3,16], behavioural changes (fish) [17], and skin damage (humans) [18,19]. The sewage sludge isolates A. johnsonii and Oligotropha carboxidovorans [20] showed complete loss of viability during the treatment with 0.07 and 0.7 mg ml .…”

“…Their harmful effects on the environment have been well characterized, and include remobilization of organic pollutants and inhibition of enzyme activity such as microbial dehydrogenase and algae nitrogenase [2]. Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) is an anionic surfactant that is used in household products such as toothpastes, shampoos, shaving foams and bubble baths [3]. Hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HDTMA) is a cationic surfactant widely used in hair conditioning products.…”

Diplolaimella dievengatensis (Nematoda: Monhysteridae) as model organism in ecotoxicity assay

“…As "slow species", we have chosen Diplolaimella dievengatensis ) that has a relatively longer generation time and lower fecundity (Table 1). Despite females of both species have similar body length at egg production; L. marina continues to grow after maturation whereas D. dievengatensis does not (Table 1) The SDS detergent, herein utilized as the chemical stressor, is often used in ecotoxicological tests as a reference substance (Jorge & Moreira, 2005;Mariani et al, 2006;Faimali et al, 2014). It has received special attention in the last decades since it is used as a residual of anionic tensoactive agent for household, agricultural and industrial purposes (Singh et al, 2007) and has proved to have detrimental effects on the biota (Messina et al, 2014).…”