Toxicity of nickel to tropical freshwater and sediment biota: A critical literature review and gap analysis

Abstract

More than two-thirds of the world's nickel (Ni) lateritic deposits are in tropical regions, and just less than half are within South East Asia and Melanesia (SEAM). With increasing Ni mining and processing in SEAM, environmental risk assessment tools are required to ensure sustainable development. Currently, there are no tropical-specific water or sediment quality guideline values for Ni, and the appropriateness of applying guideline values derived for temperate systems (e.g., Europe) to tropical ecosystems is unknown. Databases of Ni toxicity and toxicity tests for tropical freshwater and sediment species were compiled. Nickel toxicity data were ranked, using a quality assessment, identifying data to potentially use to derive tropical-specific Ni guideline values. There were no data for Ni toxicity in tropical freshwater sediments. For tropical freshwaters, of 163 Ni toxicity values for 40 different species, high-quality chronic data, based on measured Ni concentrations, were found for just 4 species (1 microalga, 2 macrophytes, and 1 cnidarian), all of which were relevant to SEAM. These data were insufficient to calculate tropical-specific guideline values for long-term aquatic ecosystem protection in tropical regions. For derivation of highreliability tropical-or SEAM-specific water and sediment quality guideline values, additional research effort is required. Using gap analysis, we recommend how research gaps could be filled. Environ Toxicol Chem 2018;37:293-317. C 2017 SETAC

Concise Review of Nickel Human Health Toxicology and Ecotoxicology

“…Ecotoxicity data for nickel are widely available. The data described in this paper were obtained from existing critical reviews of the literature, which are available for temperate [196] and tropical [197,198] ecosystems. These reviews followed data screening approaches consistent with those reported previously [181,196,199,200].…”

“…Application of these data to tropical ecosystems, which are increasingly important in terms of global nickel production, carries uncertainty because of differences in taxonomic groups (e.g., corals live only in tropical systems) and the distribution of chemistry parameters known to influence nickel toxicity. Binet et al [197] critically reviewed the literature for available nickel ecotoxicity data for tropical species, and only identified high-quality data for four species, including one unicellular alga, two vascular plants, and one invertebrate. The low number of available tropical data suggests that additional testing of key species (crustaceans, gastropods, and fish) may be necessary to develop a robust tropical dataset.…”

Probabilistic ecotoxicological risk assessment of imidazolium ionic liquids with amino acid and halide anions

“…The sensitivity of the species in response to toxic effects of ILs was analysed by SSD method. Species Sensitivity Distributions Burrlioz2.0 is one of the software used for SSD analysis [46]. Species sensitivities distributions were calculated using the Burrlioz2.0 package to obtain guideline values (GVs) for different levels of protection SSD plots from each group for all 4 bacteria were generated and shown in figures 4, 5 and 6.…”

Genotoxic and Anatomical Deteriorations Associated with Potentially Toxic Elements Accumulation in Water Hyacinth Grown in Drainage Water Resources

“…The fast global discharge of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) into the hydrosphere has attracted serious focus due to their high bioavailability, bioaccumulation, and biomagnification potentials [1][2][3].…”