A 48-h larval development toxicity test using the marine polychaete Galeolaria caespitosa lamarck (fam. serpulidae)

Assessing the risk of effluents and other anthropogenic inputs to the recei ving environment is ultimately best done on a site-specific basis, which of ten requires toxicity tests using organisms relevant to that environment. A dditionally, the test species or life stage needs to be available for a rea sonable portion of the year to allow temporal fluctuations to be assessed. A 48-h larval development toxicity test using the marine polychaete Galeola ria caespitosa was developed. This test was developed as G. caespitosa rele ases viable gametes year-round, and the test species is environmentally rel evant to the marine system receiving the liquid effluent being evaluated. T oxicity tests were conducted using G. caespitosa from different locations a nd evaluating the gamete response to copper. All population responses were comparable, with EC50 values ranging from 16 to 40 mug/L copper (as CuCl2 . 2H(2)O). Toxicity tests were also conducted using G, caespitosa gametes wi th an effluent produced by a lead smelting operation. The response of the G . caespitosa test with this effluent was compared with three other test met hods using two microalgal species, Isochrysis sp. and Nitzschia closterium, and gametes from the mussel Mytilus edulis. The G. caespitosa larval devel opment toxicity test was the most sensitive test to the effluent, with EC50 values ranging from 1-23% effluent, while it ranked second in sensitivity to copper. This test could be applied to other common serpulids worldwide.