Journal article
Food limitation in Chironomus tepperi: Effects on survival, sex ratios and development across two generations
KR Townsend, VJ Pettigrove, AA Hoffmann
Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety | Published : 2012
Abstract
Species from the Dipteran family Chironomidae are widely used in laboratory and field studies to identify toxicity in freshwater environments. However, toxicity assessments can be influenced by food availability, which can alter endpoints in assays including viability, sex ratios and development time. The aim of this study was to determine if food limitation affected the endpoints used in toxicity tests with the Australian model organism, Chironomus tepperi, including responses in offspring. First instar larvae were subjected to food treatments with larval density controlled and offspring were either raised under the same food conditions as their parents or under standard conditions. In lowe..
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Funding Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Jon Martin from the University of Melbourne, Anupama Kumar from CSIRO and Latrobe University for the provision of the stock cultures of Chironomus tepperi. Jon Martin is also thanked for providing breeding and culture tanks for C tepperi. Sara Long provided advice on conducting the laboratory tests, and two anonymous reviewers provided their helpful comments on the manuscript. Funding for this research was provided by Melbourne Water Corporation, the Victorian Department of Business and Innovation through support of the Centre for Aquatic Pollution Identification and Management, and the Australian Research Council through their Fellowship scheme.