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ARPHA Conference Abstracts : Conference Abstract
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Tiziana Di Lorenzo‡, Walter Dario Di Marzio§, Leonardo Piccini|, Giuseppe Messana‡, Maria Elena Sáenz¶, Diana Maria Paola Galassi#
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Corresponding author: Tiziana Di Lorenzo (tiziana.dilorenzo@ise.cnr.it)
Received: 21 Sep 2018 | Published: 26 Sep 2018
© 2018 Tiziana Di Lorenzo, Walter Di Marzio, Leonardo Piccini, Giuseppe Messana, Maria Sáenz, Diana Galassi
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Di Lorenzo T, Di Marzio W, Piccini L, Messana G, Sáenz M, Galassi D (2018) Survival, metabolic rates and locomotory activities of a groundwater-obligate copepod species under long-term exposures to tetrachloroethylene. ARPHA Conference Abstracts 1: e29966. https://doi.org/10.3897/aca.1.e29966
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Abstract
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are known to potentially cause a severe change in the respiratory metabolism of freshwater species, however the effect of these contaminants on groundwater-obligate species has not been investigated to date. Tetrachloroethylene (TCE) is a VOC frequently found in the groundwater bodies of industrialized areas, even years after a contamination event because TCE degradation takes several decades to occur. Contamination from TCE is considered persistent and difficult to remediate. Its high density favors a gravity-driven vertical infiltration into groundwater bodies. The TCE threshold value is 1.1 μg/L in groundwater bodies of Italy. TCE concentration in many Italian groundwater bodies is widely over this legal limit.
In this study, we investigated the effect of 1.1 μg/L TCE on the survival, oxygen consumption, and locomotory activities of a groundwater-obligate copepod species. The specimens required for the trials were collected in the Antro del Corchia Cave (Tuscany). We measured the individual-based oxygen consumption of this species as a proxy of possible metabolic reactions to long-term (5 days) exposures to TCE at 8.0°C that is the mean annual temperature of groundwater flowing in the cave. To this end, we used a sealed glass microplate equipped with 24-planar oxygen sensor spots with optical isolation glued onto the bottom of 80-μL wells (Loligo Systems, Denmark) integrated with a 24-channel fluorescence-based respirometry system (SDR Sensor Dish Reader, PreSens, Germany). The system allows simultaneous measurement of 20 replicates and 4 controls. Survival and locomotory activity assessments were performed by counting the number of alive individuals and measuring the number of moving animals in 5 mL glass vials each containing 20 individuals. Preliminary results showed a decreasing in oxygen consumption of the organisms exposed to 1.1 μg/L TCE for 5 days at 8°C respect to the control. However, neither survival nor locomotory activities appeared to have been affected by exposure to TCE. See Suppl. material
Keywords
Copepods; tetrachloroethylene; traits
Presenting author
Tiziana Di Lorenzo
Presented at
24th International Conference on Subterranean Biology, 20-24th August 2018, University of Aveiro, Portugal
Funding program
LIFE12 BIO/IT/000231 AQUALIFE
Supplementary material
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