Interactive Effects of Metals in Mixtures on Biomass Production Kinetics of Freshwater Copepods
- 1 August 1980
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Canadian Science Publishing in Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
- Vol. 37 (8), 1295-1302
- https://doi.org/10.1139/f80-165
Abstract
The effect of metal mixtures on the biomass production rates of natural assemblages of copepods was predicted by assuming that metal-induced increases in the inverse of the growth rate (i.e. the growth time) are additive. The average observed growth time increase, ΔGTobs in 14 binary mixtures of the metals Cd, Cu, Hg, Pb, Zn, and As was 17% larger than the average calculated growth time increases, ΔGTcal (assuming additivity), indicating a slight but statistically significant synergism. Synergism in multimetal mixtures appears to be cumulative, since the average ΔGTobs was 53% greater than the average ΔGTcal in mixtures containing five metals simultaneously. One of the 15 possible binary mixtures (Zn:As) of the six metals tested demonstrated a large divergence between ΔGTobs and ΔGTcal. For all other metal mixtures studied, most of the toxicity is accounted for by the summation of noninteractive, single, metal effects.Key words: copepods, metal toxicity, metal interactions, biomass production, cadmium, copper, mercury, lead, zinc, arsenicThis publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit:
- Effect of Metals on the Biomass Production Kinetics of Freshwater CopepodsCanadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 1980
- A Rapid Method for the Estimation of, and Some Factors Affecting, Copepod Production Rates in the Burlington CanalJournal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 1979
- Toxic effects of heavy metals upon cultures of Uronema marinum (Ciliophora: Uronematidae)Marine Biology, 1979
- Toxicity of a Mixture of Metals on Freshwater AlgaeJournal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 1978