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Acute toxicity assessment of drinking water source with luminescent bacteria: Impact of environmental conditions and a case study in Luoma Lake, East China

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Abstract

Protecting the quality of lake watersheds by preventing and reducing their contamination is an effective approach to ensure the sustainability of the drinking water supply. In this study, acute toxicity assessment was conducted on the basis of acute bioluminescence inhibition assay using the marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri as the test organism and Luoma Lake drinking water source in East China as the research target. The suitable ranges of environmental factors, including pH value, organic matter, turbidity, hardness, and dissolved oxygen of water samples were evaluated for the toxicity testing of bioluminescent bacteria. The physicochemical characteristics of water samples at the selected 43 sites of Luoma Lake watershed were measured. Results showed that the variations in pH value (7.31–8.41), hardness (5–20 °d) and dissolved oxygen (4.44–11.03 mg/L) of Luoma Lake and its main inflow and outflow rivers had negligible impacts on the acute toxicity testing of V. fischeri. The luminescence inhibition rates ranged from −11.21% to 10.80% at the 43 sites. Pearson’s correlation analysis in the experiment revealed that temperature, pH value, hardness, and turbidity had no correlation with luminescence inhibition rate, whereas dissolved oxygen showed a weak statistically positive correlation with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.455 (p < 0.05).

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Provincial Environmental Protection Research Project of Jiangsu (No. 2018002)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China

    Xuewen Yi

  2. State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Monitoring and Analysis for Organic Pollutants in Surface Water, Jiangsu Environmental Monitoring Center, Nanjing, 210036, China

    Zhanqi Gao & Guanjiu Hu

  3. State Key Joint Laboratory of ESPC, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Lanhua Liu, Qian Zhu & Xiaohong Zhou

Authors
  1. Xuewen Yi
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  2. Zhanqi Gao
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  3. Lanhua Liu
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  4. Qian Zhu
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  5. Guanjiu Hu
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  6. Xiaohong Zhou
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Guanjiu Hu or Xiaohong Zhou.

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Highlights

• Acute toxicity assessment was conducted in Luoma lake watershed, East China.

• Impacts of environmental factors on the toxicity testing was fully evaluated.

• Dissolve oxygen had a weak positive correlation with luminescence inhibition rate.

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Yi, X., Gao, Z., Liu, L. et al. Acute toxicity assessment of drinking water source with luminescent bacteria: Impact of environmental conditions and a case study in Luoma Lake, East China. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. 14, 109 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-020-1288-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-020-1288-z

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