D. Marazza et al., EFFECT OF AMMONIA ON SURVIVAL AND ADENYLATE ENERGY-CHARGE IN THE SHRIMP PALAEMONETES VARIANS, Ecotoxicology and environmental safety, 34(2), 1996, pp. 103-108
Shrimps Palaemonetes varians were submitted to lethal and sublethal co
ncentrations of ammonia in order to measure lethality, ATP and adenyla
te nucleotide levels, and adenylate energy charge (AEC) index. LC50 wa
s of about 3 mg/liter of ammonia. Adenylate measurements were performe
d over a period of 14 days and for two different concentrations. A pop
ulation submitted to 0.5 mg/liter of ammonia exhibited high survival a
nd a marked consumption of ATP, whereas high mortality and disordered
ATP metabolism are the characteristics of the population submitted to
3 mg/liter of ammonia. An homeostatic model was applied in order to ex
plain the significance of the AEC signal. Here, AEC is proposed as a m
easure of the limits of active response of an organism to environmenta
l stress. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.