Will temperature increases associated with climate change potentiate toxicity of environmentally relevant concentrations of chloride on larval green frogs (Lithobates clamitans)?

Abstract

An important challenge in amphibian ecotoxicology and conservation is that amphibian toxicity tests are usually focused on a single chemical while populations experience multiple, simultaneous stressors. For example, about 14 million tons of road de-icing salts are used each year in North America with NaCl accounting for 98% of total salt use and, hence, elevated chloride is an important environmental stressor to aquatic organisms, including amphibians. As well, higher temperature as a result of climate change is becoming an increasingly important environmental stressor. There are no data on the combined effects of chloride and temperature on amphibians hinders conservation efforts. We conducted field studies to characterize chloride concentrations and water temperatures in known amphibian breeding habitats and performed toxicity tests to explore impacts of these two stressors on a common anuran, the green frog (Lithobates clamitans). A 96-hour acute toxicity test was conducted to first determine a chloride LC50 (2587.5 mg Cl−/L) at a single, neutral temperature, which was used to inform the treatment levels of the sub-chronic test, which also included a temperature range. In the sub-chronic study, green frog larvae were exposed to three temperatures (18, 22, and 25 °C), and four concentrations of chloride (0, 500, 1000, and 2000 mg Cl−/L) for 35 days. At all temperatures, tadpoles exposed to 2000 mg Cl−/L had significantly higher mortality. While there was no significant effect of temperature alone on mortality, survival of tadpoles was significantly lower at 1000 mg Cl−/L at the two higher temperatures suggesting a potentiation of chloride ion toxicity with increasing temperature. Comparing toxicity results to field measurements of chloride and temperature suggests green frog tadpoles and other species with similar sensitivity are likely negatively affected. Data on additional species and populations would further increase our understanding of how salt and temperature may shape aquatic communities.