Ecotoxicological studies to assess safety level of lead PB along the Chennai coast

Abstract

The presence of toxic chemicals in the marine environment has newlinelong been recognized as a potential threat to the health of the oceans and newlinecoasts The oceans are the repository for many chemicals of anthropogenic newlineorigin Research in marine toxicology ultimately seeks to monitor and predict newlinethe effects of a toxicant and to understand how environmental pollutants newlinemight be endangering marine species The analysis of biological damages newlinebiochemical and histology in conjunction with other endpoints provides the newlineevaluation of new insights that could help the interpretation of the effects of newlinecontaminants on aquatic organisms newlineHeavy metal pollution of the coastal environmental is less visible newlineand direct than other types of marine pollution but its effects on marine newlineecosystems and humans are very extensive Overall assessment of metal newlinepollution in coastal regions of Chennai reveals that the accumulation of heavy newlinemetals has increased in all the environmental matrices viz water sediment newlineand biota Among the metal pollutants Lead Pb is a nonessential metal newlineubiquitous in nature and considered toxic to humans and aquatic life newlineThese toxicity studies closely match with the USEPA protocol for newlineselecting species for toxicity test The organisms used were Mugil cephalus newlineGrey Mullet and Terapon jarbua Tiger perch for marine fish species newlinePerna viridis Green Mussel and Post larval stage 11 14 of Penaeus newlinemonodon Tiger prawn The test concentrations for the acute and chronic newlinetoxicity tests were selected from the range finding tests The organisms were newlineexposed in the definitive test and prior to the definitive test run the test newlineorganisms were acclimated for 1014 days in FRP Fibreglass Reinforced newlinePlastic tank containing filtered seawater Continuous Flow through CFT newlinemethod was used consisting of replicates for control and five test newlineconcentrations Samples of the test solutions were analyzed to determine newlineactual concentrations of the toxicant newlineIn the acute toxicity test estimation of the 96 h median lethal newlineconcentration LC was the test endpoint newline