Relationship among aqueous copper half-lives and responses of Pimephales promelas to a series of copper sulfate pentahydrate concentrations.

Abstract

Copper algaecide exposures in situ are often of shorter duration than exposures for static toxicity experiments because aqueous concentrations in situ dissipate as a function of site-specific fate processes. Consequently, responses of organisms to static copper exposures may overestimate effects following in situ exposures. To understand the role of exposure duration for altering responses, Pimephales promelas survival was compared following static (96 h) and pulse (1.5, 4, 8, and 15 h half-lives) exposures of CuSO4•5H2O. Copper concentrations sorbed by fry indicated a consequence of different exposures. Responses of P. promelas to static exposures resulted in 96 h LC50s of 166 µgCu/L (95% confidence interval [CI], 142-189 µgCu/L) as soluble copper and 162 µgCu/L (CI, 140-183 µgCu/L) as acid soluble copper. Relative to static 96 h LC50s, exposures with half-lives of 1.5, 4 and 8 h resulted in LC50s 10, 3 and 2 times greater, respectively, for responses measured 96 h after exposure initiation. Copper concentrations extracted from fry exposed for 1.5, 4 and 8 h half-lives were less than the static experiment. However, copper sorbed by fry in the 15 h half-life experiment was not different than the static experiment. The relationship between 96 h LC50 and 1/half-life was expressed using the equations y = 116 + 1360 × (R2 = 0.97) for soluble copper and y = 147 + 1620 × (R2 = 0.98) for acid soluble copper. Incorporation of exposure duration for predictions of P. promelas responses to copper pulse exposures increases prediction accuracy by an order of magnitude.