Species of freshwater invertebrates that are sensitive to one saline water are mostly sensitive to another saline water but an exception exists

Kasey A Hills; Ross V Hyne; Ben J Kefford

doi:10.1098/rstb.2018.0003

Species of freshwater invertebrates that are sensitive to one saline water are mostly sensitive to another saline water but an exception exists

Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2018 Dec 3;374(1764):20180003. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2018.0003.

Authors

Kasey A Hills^{1

2}, Ross V Hyne², Ben J Kefford³

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Applied Ecology, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia.
² Science Division, Office of Environment and Heritage, PO Box 29, Lidcombe, New South Wales 1825, Australia.
³ Institute for Applied Ecology, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia Ben.Kefford@canberra.edu.au.

Abstract

Coal mining and extraction of methane from coal beds generate effluent with elevated salinity or major ion concentrations. If discharged to freshwater systems, these effluents may have adverse environmental effects. There is a growing body of work on freshwater invertebrates that indicates variation in the proportion of major ions can be more important than salinity when determining toxicity. However, it is not known if saline toxicity in a subset of species is representative of toxicity across all freshwater invertebrates. If patterns derived from a subset of species are representative of all freshwater invertebrates, then we would expect a correlation in the relative sensitivity of these species to multiple saline waters. Here, we determine if there is a correlation between the acute (96 h) lethal toxicity in freshwater invertebrates to synthetic marine salts (SMS) and sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO₃) added to dechlorinated Sydney tap water. NaHCO₃ is a major component of many coal bed effluents. However, most salinization in Australia exhibits ionic composition similar to seawater, which has very little HCO₃^- Across all eight species tested, NaHCO₃ was 2-50 times more toxic than SMS. We also observed strong correlations in the acute toxicity of seven of the tested species to SMS and NaHCO₃ The strongest relationship (LC50 r² = 0.906) was dependent on the exclusion of one species, Paratya australiensis (Decopoda: Atyidae), which was the most sensitive species tested to NaHCO₃, but the second-most tolerant of SMS. We conclude that differences in the toxicity of different proportions of major ions can be similar across a wide range of species. Therefore, a small subset of the invertebrate community can be representative of the whole. However, there are some species, which based on the species tested in the current study appear to be a minority, that respond differently to saline effluent and need to be considered separately. We discuss the implications of this study for the management of saline coal bed waters.This article is part of the theme issue 'Salt in freshwaters: causes, ecological consequences and future prospects'.

Keywords: Australia; bicarbonate; ecotoxicology; freshwater; invertebrates; salinity.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Fresh Water
Invertebrates / drug effects*
Saline Waters / adverse effects
Salts / toxicity*
Sodium Bicarbonate / toxicity*
Toxicity Tests, Acute

Substances

Salts
Sodium Bicarbonate

Associated data

figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4283915