Integration of varying responses of different organisms to water and sediment quality at sites impacted and not impacted by the petroleum industry

Abstract

The toxicity of surface waters and interstitial waters from sediments were determined at six study sites in Todos as Santos Bay, Bahia, Brazil, to evaluate the possibility of chronic environmental impact induced by 40 years of exposure to the local petroleum industry. Samples collected from four sites associated with the extraction, transportation and refinement of petroleum, and from two control sites, were tested at seven three-month intervals. Toxicological assays using acute mortality of brine shrimp (Artemia salina) nauplii and chronic abnormalities of sea urchin (Echinometra lucunter) and mangrove oyster (Crassostrea rhizophorae) larvae were employed. Friedman non-parametric analyses of variance integrated seasonal variations in species response patterns and revealed significant differences among the study sites. Ranging the among-site variations for each organism in each sampling period, on a scale from 0.00 (minimum response) to 1.00 (maximum response), permitted the calculation of a single mean value for each species and the ordination of the sites on a qualitative scale of relative impact. Although the ordinations varied with species, the reduction of three species response patterns to a common relative scale also permitted their integration into a single multispecies ordination of the study sites. A cluster analysis of the six sites and two aquatic substrates, based on their toxicity to all three species, illustrated the similarities and differences between locations. Interstitial waters were more toxic, revealing an integrated ordination of Station 6 --< Station 5 --< (Station 3= Station2) --< (Station 4 = Station 1). The ordination based on surface waters was Station 6 -< Station 5 --< (Station 2 = Station 1 = Station 3) < Station 4. In combination, the three procedures served efficiently for the description and inferential testing of the multispecies responses and, complemented with additional data on species diversity and chemical contamination of the sediment, confirmed the existence of chronic impact within the study area.

Lysosomal responses as a diagnostic tool for the detection of chronic petroleum pollution at Todos os Santos Bay, Brazil

“…Previous studies in the Bay of Todos os Santos (Nascimento, 1996;Tavares, 1996;da Silva et al, 1997;Nascimento et al, 1998bNascimento et al, , 2000a identified a moderate to low pollution potential in all areas of the petroleum industry, except for the refinery site, where the sediment toxicity was classified as high (Nascimento et al, 1998a(Nascimento et al, , 2000a.…”

Toxicity of water‐soluble fractions of biodiesel fuels derived from castor oil, palm oil, and waste cooking oil

“…However, larvae of various sea urchin species have been previously used to test the quality of waters and to provide data to estimate and prevent environmental harmful effects of effluents and products to be released in coastal areas [32][33][34].…”

A review of selected indicators of particle, nutrient and metal inputs in coral reef lagoon systems

“…Such toxicity tests conducted for known concentrations of several contaminants (mostly metals, hydrocarbons and pesticides) have recently been developed in tropical and subtropical regions to identify suitable target-species and establish related benchmarks, a necessary step to define bioassays suitable for ecological risk assessments (Peters et al 1997). However, very few works involving in situ bioassays or laboratory exposure to field-collected seawater or sediment samples have been conducted to date in coastal tropical and subtropical waters (Rumbold and Snedeker 1999;Nascimento et al 2000).…”