Wj. Berry et al., PREDICTING THE TOXICITY OF METAL-SPIKED LABORATORY SEDIMENTS USING ACID-VOLATILE SULFIDE AND INTERSTITIAL WATER NORMALIZATIONS, Environmental toxicology and chemistry, 15(12), 1996, pp. 2067-2079
Numerous studies have shown that dry weight concentrations of metals i
n sediments cannot be used to predict toxicity across sediments. Howev
er, several studies using sediments from both freshwater and saltwater
have shown that interstitial water concentration or normalizations in
volving acid-volatile sulfide (AVS) can be used to predict toxicity in
sediments contaminated with cadmium, copper, nickel, lead, or zinc ac
ross a wide range of sediment types. Six separate experiments were con
ducted in which two or three sediments of varying AVS concentration we
re spiked with a series of concentrations of cadmium, copper, lead, ni
ckel, or zinc or a mixture of four of these metals. The amphipod Ampel
isca abdita was then exposed to the sediments in 10-d toxicity tests.
Amphipod mortality was sediment dependent when plotted against dry wei
ght metals concentration but was not sediment dependent when plotted a
gainst simultaneously extracted metal (SEM)/AVS or interstitial water
toxic units (IWTUs). Sediments with SEM/AVS ratios <1.0 were seldom (2
.3%) toxic (i.e., caused >24% mortality), while sediments with SEM/AVS
ratios >1.0 were frequently (80%) toxic. Similarly, sediments with <0
.5 IWTU were seldom toxic (3.0%), while sediments with >0.5 IWTU were
toxic 94.4% of the time. These results, coupled with results from rela
ted studies, demonstrate that an understanding of the fundamental chem
ical reactions which control the availability of cadmium, copper, lead
, nickel, and zinc in sediments can be used to explain observed biolog
ical responses. We believe that using SEM/AVS ratios and IWTUs allows
for more accurate predictions of acute mortality, with better causal l
inkage to metal concentration, than is possible with sediment evaluati
on tools which rely on dry weight metal concentrations.