Evaluation of Short‐Term Mussel Test for Estimating Toxicity

Abstract

AbstractEffect concentrations of ammonia, nickel, sodium chloride, and potassium chloride from short‐term 7‐day tests were compared to those from standard chronic 28‐day toxicity tests with juvenile mussels (fatmucket, Lampsilis siliquoidea) to evaluate the sensitivities of the 7‐day tests. The effect concentrations for nickel (59 µg Ni/L), chloride (316–519 mg Cl/L, a range from multiple tests), and potassium (15 mg K/L) obtained from the 7‐day tests were within a range of effect concentrations for each corresponding chemical in the 28‐day tests (41–91 µg Ni/L, 251–>676 mg Cl/L, 15–23 mg K/L), whereas the 7‐day ammonia effect concentration (0.40 mg/L total ammonia nitrogen; TAN) was up to 3.3‐fold greater than the 28‐day effect concentrations (0.12–0.36 mg TAN/L) but with overlapped 95% confidence limits. These results indicate that the 7‐day tests produced similar estimates compared to the 28‐day tests. Further studies are needed to evaluate the 7‐day test sensitivity using additional chemicals with different modes of toxic action. Environ Toxicol Chem 2024;43:2020–2025. Published 2024. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.