Seasonal Response of Daphnia pulex to Cyanobacterial Extracts at Different Temperatures in Valle de Bravo Reservoir (Mexico)

Abstract

Valle de Bravo reservoir supplies drinking water to 40% of Mexico City. Here we present data on the population growth and life-table demography of the cladoceran Daphnia pulex, cultured at temperatures of 20 °C and 25 °C and with different concentrations of the crude extracts from blooms of Microcystis aeruginosa, collected in January, and Woronichinia naegeliana, collected in September. We hypothesized that Daphnia pulex would be more sensitive at the higher temperature and to toxins from W. naegeliana as these blooms have been shown to be more toxic to rotifers. We extracted the toxins and conducted acute toxicity tests at eight concentrations of microcystins at 20 °C. The LC50 was 26.8 µg/L and 11.5 µg/L, respectively, for Microcystis and Woronichinia samples. The chronic toxicity tests included population growth and life-table demography studies at 5 and 10% of the LC50 concentration, at 20 °C and 25 °C. Four replicates for each of the three treatments, which consisted of treatments with low and high cyanotoxin levels and a control without cyanotoxins, were set up. The population growth rate ranged from 0.18 to 0.42 d−1 on the extracts from M. aeruginosa (January) and from 0.2 to 0.31 on extracts from W. naegeliana. Daphnia, being better adapted to cooler temperatures, was more adversely affected at 25 °C than 20 °C. The adverse effect of cyanobacterial extracts was greater from Microcystis than Woronichinia blooms. The tolerance of Daphnia pulex to cyanotoxins depends on the bloom-forming species and the temperature.