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Antagonistic toxicity of arsenate and cadmium in a freshwater amphipod (Gammarus pulex)

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Abstract

Because toxicants rarely occur alone in the environment, a major challenge in risk assessment is to address the combined effects of chemicals on aquatic organisms. This work is aimed at investigating the joint toxicity action of binary mixtures of cadmium and arsenate on Gammarus pulex. Individuals were exposed during 240 h to four single arsenate or cadmium concentrations and binary mixtures of these metals according to a complete factorial plane. Observed mortality in binary mixtures was compared to observed mortality in single arsenate or cadmium exposures. In addition, interactive effects (antagonistic, additive or synergistic) were evaluated using a predictive model for the theoretically expected interactive effect of chemicals. For all the tested concentration combinations, we observed an antagonist ‘between-metals’ interaction on G. pulex mortality. This antagonistic effect was more marked for the lowest than for the highest (i.e. 1502.0 μgAsV L−1 and 28.5 μgCd L−1) tested concentrations of individual metals in binary mixtures. Metal concentrations in body tissues were evaluated and were significantly lower in binary mixtures than in single metal exposures at similar concentration, especially for combinations corresponding to the highest concentrations of both metals (1502.0 μgAsV L−1 and 28.5 μgCd L−1). Results were discussed in terms of (1) mechanisms of uptake and bioconcentration and (2) relationships between metal concentration in gammarid body and observed toxicity.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the French Ministry of Education and Research (Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche), which has supported this study. The authors warmly thank Karen Hopson for linguistic revision of the manuscript and the two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments that improved the clarity of the text.

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  1. Laboratoire des Interactions Ecotoxicologie Biodiversité Ecosystèmes (LIEBE), Université de Lorraine (UDL), CNRS UMR 7146, Campus Bridoux, Rue du Général Delestraint, 57070, Metz, France

    Céline Vellinger, Marc Parant, Philippe Rousselle & Philippe Usseglio-Polatera

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  1. Céline Vellinger
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  2. Marc Parant
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  3. Philippe Rousselle
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  4. Philippe Usseglio-Polatera
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Correspondence to Céline Vellinger.

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Vellinger, C., Parant, M., Rousselle, P. et al. Antagonistic toxicity of arsenate and cadmium in a freshwater amphipod (Gammarus pulex). Ecotoxicology 21, 1817–1827 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-012-0916-1

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