Abstract
The Morcille River located in the Beaujolais vineyard area (Eastern France) is subjected to strong vine-growing pressure leading to the contamination by a range of herbicides and fungicides of the surrounding freshwater environment. Particularly high concentrations of norflurazon, desmethyl norflurazon and tebuconazole were recorded in spring 2010 at the downstream site of the river. Despite their occurrence in rivers, scarce toxicity data are available for these products, in particular in the case of desmethyl norflurazon (main norflurazon degradation product). Furthermore, the toxicity data are generally available only for single compounds and are issued from single species toxicity tests, leading to a lack of ecological relevance. Consequently, this study was undertaken to evaluate the toxic effects of norflurazon, desmethyl norflurazon and tebuconazole singly and in a ternary mixture on fluvial biofilm. Toxicity tests were performed in microplates for 48 h. Photosynthetic endpoints were measured using pulse amplitude-modulated fluorometry; diatom densities and taxonomic composition were determined. After 48 h of exposure, significant effects on optimal quantum yield (F v/F m) for desmethyl norflurazon and mixture were observed.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the ANR (The French National Research Agency) through its programme CESA (Contaminants and Environments: Metrology, Health, Adaptability & usages) and the PoToMAC (Potential Toxicity of pesticides in Continental Aquatic Environments: passive sampling and exposure/impact on biofilms) programme under the reference ANR-11-CESA-022. The authors would like to thank S. Lissalde for her skilful technical assistance.
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Kim Tiam, S., Libert, X., Morin, S. et al. Single and mixture effects of pesticides and a degradation product on fluvial biofilms. Environ Monit Assess 186, 3931–3939 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-014-3669-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-014-3669-x