The salinity tolerance of eggs and hatchlings of selected aquatic macroinvertebrates in south-east Australia and South Africa

By B. Kefford, A. Dalton, C. Palmer, D. Nugegoda. Hydrobiologia, 2004

100 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The effect of rising salinity levels on freshwater ecosystems is of concern in many parts of the world, including Australia and southern Africa. Most studies on the salinity tolerance of freshwater macroinvertebrates only consider older life-stages, which are suspected of being more tolerant than early life-stages, such as eggs and hatchlings. The salinity tolerances of ten taxa from south-east Australia and two taxa from South Africa, to the artificial seawater, Ocean Nature, were investigated. From the Barwon River in south-west Victoria, the following taxa were tested Amarinus lacustris (Hymenosomatidae), Paratya australiensis (Atyidae) Physa acuta (Physidae), Lymnaeidae, Plectrocnemia sp. (Polycentropodidae), Anisocentropus sp. (Calamoceratidae), Hydrobiosidae, unidentified Polycentropodidae and Dinotoperla thwaitesi (Gripopterygidae). Chironomus tepperi (Chironomidae) from a laboratory colony stocked from central New South Wales was also investigated. The South African limpets Burnupia stenochorias (Ancylidae) were collected in the Eastern Cape and shrimps Caridina nilotica (Atyidae) from a colony stocked from Kwazulu-Natal were studied. The salinity tolerances of the eggs and hatchlings ranged from 0.8 to >47 mS cm−1 with a mean of 17 mS cm−1. Where reliable estimates are available, the eggs or hatchlings had a salinity tolerance between 5% and 100% of the 72-hour LC50 of older stages, although for insects this was <50%. This study has thus confirmed that salinity tolerances of young stages can be less than the acute tolerances of older stages.

Subfields: Ecology, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a9852c3fa71006d2f1a44c606aee2aea9e183629

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Citations in the corpus

Exploring the effects of salinization on trophic diversity in freshwater ecosystems: a quantitative review (2018, background): “We focused on LC50 values because they are widely reported in the literature and because they provide a standardized, quantitative estimate of salin- ity tolerance (Kefford et al., 2004c).”
Occurrence of aquatic invertebrates of the wheatbelt region of Western Australia in relation to salinity (2005, background): “To a large extent, salinity ranges recorded in the field will reflect osmoregulatory ability and Kefford et al. (2004b) have suggested that maximum recorded field salinity will approach physiological tolerance as enough records of a species are accumulated.”
Salinisation of rivers: an urgent ecological issue. (2013, methodology): “On the other side, Crustacea, Coleoptera and certain Diptera (e.g. Ceratopogonidae) and Odonata (e.g. Coenagrionidae) are among the most tolerant (Berenzina, 2002; Kefford et al., 2004b, 2006a; Dunlop et al., 2008).”
Effects of major ions on natural benthic communities: an experimental assessment of the US Environmental Protection Agency aquatic life benchmark for conductivity (2016, result): “Previous investigators have reported greater sensitivity of early instars to NaCl (Kefford et al. 2004, 2007), and similar findings have been observed for metals (Kiffney and Clements 1996, Clark and Clements 2006).”
The salinity tolerance of freshwater macroinvertebrate eggs and hatchlings in comparison to their older life-stages: a diversity of responses (2007, methodology): “Here we investigate the relationship between the salinity tolerances of eggs and/or hatchlings of several macroinvertebrate species and combine them with the results from previous work (Haage 1968, 1969; Hubschman 1975; Komnick and Wichard 1975; Kefford et al. 2004a).”