Simple aquatic microcosm for ecotoxicity screening at the community level

• Published in: Bulletin of environmental contamination and toxicology 2000-12, Vol.65 (6), p.699-706
• Main Authors: FUMA, S, TAKEDA, H, MIYAMOTO, K, YANAGISAWA, K, INOUE, Y, ISHII, N, SUGAI, K, ISHII, C, KAWABATA, Z
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Animals; Applied ecology; Biological and medical sciences; Culture Media; Ecological Systems, Closed; Ecotoxicology, biological effects of pollution; Energy Metabolism - drug effects; Energy Metabolism - physiology; Escherichia coli - drug effects; Escherichia coli - metabolism; Euglena - drug effects; Euglena - metabolism; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Manganese Poisoning - metabolism; Manganese Poisoning - physiopathology; microcosms; Peptones - pharmacology; Tetrahymena pyriformis - drug effects; Tetrahymena pyriformis - metabolism; Water Pollutants - toxicity
• ISSN: 0007-4861; 1432-0800
• DOI: 10.1007/s001280000180

Microcosms are experimental ecosystems constructed in the laboratory, and are expected to make it possible to evaluate ecotoxicity at the community level. Microcosm toxicity tests are therefore appearing in the literature in increasing numbers, and the several protocols have been drafted (Giddings 1983). However, most of the microcosms are too complex to screen ecotoxicity of enormous chemicals. The authors therefore try to apply a simple aquatic microcosm to ecotoxicity screening. In this study, the microcosm and its pure-culture systems were exposed to manganese to examine whether the microcosm responds to toxic agents at the community level.