Acute toxicity of inorganic nitrogen (ammonium, nitrate and nitrite) to tadpoles of five tropical amphibian species
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Acute toxicity of inorganic nitrogen (ammonium, nitrate and nitrite) to tadpoles of five tropical amphibian species Michiel A. Daam
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Paulo Ilha2 Luis Schiesari3 ●
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Accepted: 27 June 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Despite the higher diversity of amphibians and the increasing use of agrochemicals in tropical countries, knowledge on the ecotoxicity of such compounds to tropical amphibians remains very limited. The aim of this study was, therefore, to assess the acute lethal toxicity of three nitrogen salts (ammonium sulphate, sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite) to tadpoles of five tropical frog species: Rhinella ornata, Boana faber, B. pardalis, Physalaemus cuvieri, and P. olfersii. The order of sensitivity to the nitrogen salts for all five species was sodium nitrite > ammonium sulphate > sodium nitrate. There was not a single most sensitive species to all three nitrogen salts. However, differences in generated 4-d LC50 values between the most and least sensitive test species were small (a factor 2 to 6). A comparison with published toxicity values does not suggest an intrinsic higher, or lower, sensitivity of the tropical species tested as compared to their temperate counterparts. Reported nitrogen concentrations in sugarcane fields do not indicate a lethal risk to the amphibian species tested. Chronic-exposure and field studies are recommended to evaluate amphibian sensitivity under environmental-realistic multiple-stressor conditions. Keywords Amphibians Aquatic ecotoxicology Nitrogen Native species Tropics ●
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Introduction Amphibians play an important role in ecosystem functioning via nutrient cycling, energy flow and pest control (Valencia-Aguilar et al. 2013). Increasing concerns have therefore been raised with worldwide declining amphibian populations, with about one third of species currently under threat of extinction (IUCN 2017). Several underlying reasons for these declines have been identified, including emerging infectious diseases, climate change, invasive species, habitat loss and pollution (Araújo et al. 2014; Whitfield et al. 2016). In rural landscapes, agrochemicals
* Michiel A. Daam [email protected] 1
CENSE, Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, New University of Lisbon, Quinta da Torre, Caparica, 2829-516 Lisbon, Portugal
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Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
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Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Arlindo Béttio, no. 1000, Ermelino Matarazzo, São Paulo, SP CEP 03828-000, Brazil
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such as pesticides and fertilisers have been suggested to pose a high risk to amphibian communities (Camargo and Alonso 2006; Hedge et al. 2019; Marco et al. 1999; OrtizSantaliestra et al. 2018). Despite of the above, few studies have been conducted so far into the toxicity of agrochemicals to amphibians when compared to other taxonomic groups (Ilha and Schiesari 2
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