The toxicity of heavy metals commonly impacts the survival of crustacean and bivalve larvae in hatchery culture, and this has led to the widespread use of EDTA to decrease this toxicity. Since EDTA has a very poor biodegradability leading to potential persistent environmental effects, alternative methods to prevent heavy metal toxicity to shellfish larvae are needed. EDDS is a biodegradable potential alternative to EDTA for this application and was tested as a treatment of the seawater used for rearing aquaculture Greenshell™ mussel (Perna canaliculus) larval embryos in this study. Mussel embryos reared with EDTA or EDDS had significantly better survival than without. The concentrations and spatial distributions of heavy metals in D-veliger larvae as determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) and X-ray Fluorescence Microscopy (XFM) suggested that chelating agents increased the levels of calcium in larvae while they reduced the concentration of zinc. In addition, where decreased accumulation of the other heavy metals was not observed, chelating agents affected their distribution within the larvae, especially for copper and arsenic. This is the first study to test the use of EDDS for aquaculture hatchery application and shows that EDDS is an effective biodegradable alternative to EDTA that can mitigate the effects of heavy metals for shellfish larval rearing.

重金属的毒性通常会影响孵化场中甲壳类和双壳类幼虫的存活，这已导致EDTA广泛用于降低这种毒性。由于EDTA的生物降解性很差，导致潜在的持久环境影响，因此需要其他方法来防止重金属对贝类幼虫的毒性。EDDS在此应用中是EDTA的可生物降解的潜在替代品，并已作为用于养殖水产养殖Greenshell™贻贝的海水进行了测试（Perna canaliculus））本研究中的幼虫胚胎。用EDTA或EDDS饲养的贻贝胚胎的存活率明显好于没有。电感耦合等离子体质谱法（ICP-MS）和X射线荧光显微镜（XFM）测定的D-veliger幼虫中重金属的浓度和空间分布表明，螯合剂增加了幼虫中钙的含量，而螯合剂则降低了幼虫中钙的含量。锌的浓度。另外，在未观察到其他重金属积累减少的情况下，螯合剂影响了它们在幼虫中的分布，特别是对于铜和砷。这是第一项测试EDDS在水产养殖孵化场中的应用的研究，表明EDDS是EDTA的有效生物可降解替代品，可减轻重金属对贝类幼体饲养的影响。