Mentum deformities in Chironomidae communities as indicators of anthropogenic impacts in Swartkops River

► Results provide evidence of possible toxic contamination of the Swartkops River. ► Seasonality does not significantly affect the expression of mentum deformities. ► Results highlights importance of screening deformities in all sampled chironomids. ► Results provide evidence of sub-lethal effects o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physics and chemistry of the earth. Parts A/B/C 2012, Vol.50-52, p.140-148
Main Authors: Odume, O.N., Muller, W.J., Palmer, C.G., Arimoro, F.O.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis of variance
Chironomidae
Communities
Deformation
Deformities
Human influences
Larvae
Pollution abatement
Rivers
South Africa
Swartkops River
Water pollution
Water quality
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Summary:► Results provide evidence of possible toxic contamination of the Swartkops River. ► Seasonality does not significantly affect the expression of mentum deformities. ► Results highlights importance of screening deformities in all sampled chironomids. ► Results provide evidence of sub-lethal effects of pollution on chironomid larvae. Swartkops River is located in Eastern Cape of South Africa and drains a heavily industrialised catchment and has suffered deterioration in water quality due to pollution. Water quality impairment in the Swartkops River has impacted on its biota. Deformities in the mouth parts of larval Chironomidae, particularly of the mentum, represent sub-lethal effects of exposure to pollutants, and were therefore employed as indictors of pollution in the Swartkops River. Chironomid larvae were collected using the South African Scoring System version 5 (SASS5) protocol. A total of 4838 larvae, representing 26 taxa from four sampling sites during four seasons were screened for mentum deformities. The community incidences of mentum deformity were consistently higher than 8% at Sites 2–4, indicating pollution stress in the river. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) conducted on arcsine transformed data revealed that the mean community incidence of mentum deformity was significantly higher (p0.05) between seasons across sites. Severe deformities were consistently higher at Site 3. Strong correlations were found between deformity indices and the concentrations of dissolved oxygen (DO), total inorganic nitrogen (TIN), orthophosphate–phosphorus (PO4–P), electrical conductivity (EC) and turbidity.
ISSN:1474-7065
1873-5193
DOI:10.1016/j.pce.2012.08.005