Dr. Mount et al., STATISTICAL-MODELS TO PREDICT THE TOXICITY OF MAJOR IONS TO CERIODAPHNIA-DUBIA, DAPHNIA-MAGNA AND PIMEPHALES-PROMELAS (FATHEAD MINNOWS), Environmental toxicology and chemistry, 16(10), 1997, pp. 2009-2019
Toxicity of fresh waters with high total dissolved solids has been sho
wn to be dependent on the specific ionic composition of the water. To
provide a predictive tool to assess toxicity attributable to major ion
s, we tested the toxicity of over 2,900 ion solutions using the daphni
ds, Ceriodaphnia dubia and Daphnia magna, and fathead minnows (Pimepha
les promelas). Multiple logistic regression was used to relate ion com
position to survival for each of the three test species. In general, r
elative ion toxicity was K+ > HCO3- approximate to Mg2+ > Cl- > SO42-;
Na+ and Ca2+ were not significant variables in the regressions, sugge
sting that the toxicity of Na+ and Ca2+ salts was primarily attributab
le to the corresponding anion. For C. dubia and D. magna, toxicity of
Cl-, SO42-, and K+ was reduced in solutions enriched with more than on
e cation. Final regression models showed a good quality of fit to the
data (R-2 = 0.767-0.861). Preliminary applications of these models to
field-collected samples indicated a high degree of accuracy for the C.
dubia model, while the D. magna and fathead minnow models tended to o
verpredict ion toxicity.