Metal and proton toxicity to lake zooplankton: A chemical speciation based modelling approach

Academic article

Year of publication: 2014
Journal: Environmental Pollution (1987)
External websites: Cristin; Doi
Contributors: Anthony Stockdale, Edward Tipping, Stephen Lofts, Jan Fott, Øyvind Aaberg Garmo, Jakub Hruska, Bill Keller, Stefan Löfgren, Stephen C. Maberly, Vladimir Majer, Sandra A. Nierzwicki-Bauer, Gunnar Persson, Ann Kristin Schartau, Stephen J. Thackeray, Amanda Valois, Jaroslav Vrba, Bjørn Walseng, Norman Yan

Summary

The WHAM-FTOX model quantifies the combined toxic effects of protons and metal cations towards aquatic organisms through the toxicity function (FTOX), a linear combination of the products of organismbound cation and a toxic potency coefficient for each cation. We describe the application of the model to predict an observable ecological field variable, species richness of pelagic lake crustacean zooplankton, studied with respect to either acidification or the impacts of metals from smelters. The fitted results give toxic potencies increasing in the order Hþ < Al < Cu < Zn < Ni. In general, observed species richness is lower than predicted, but in some instances agreement is close, and is rarely higher than predictions. The model predicts recovery in agreement with observations for three regions, namely Sudbury (Canada), Bohemian Forest (Czech Republic) and a subset of lakes across Norway, but fails to predict observed recovery from acidification in Adirondack lakes (USA). Chemical speciation Bioavailability Recovery Crustacean zooplankton Lakes