Back to Search
Start Over
Acute toxicity of the UV filter oxybenzone to the coral Galaxea fascicularis
- Source :
- Science of The Total Environment. 796:148666
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Coral reefs are impacted by a variety of anthropogenic stressors including inputs of chemical contaminants. Although data is currently limited, sunscreens containing ultraviolet (UV) filters have recently been suggested as an emerging class of chemical contaminants. To provide further data on the toxicity of the UV filter oxybenzone (benzophenone-3 or BP-3) to corals, we conducted three independent acute toxicity tests exposing the colonial stony coral Galaxea fascicularis to BP-3 (0.31 to 10 mg/L nominal concentrations). Assessments included daily analytical verification of the exposure concentrations, calculation of the lethal concentration to result in 50% mortality (LC50) and numerous biological endpoints to further investigate the potential impact to both the coral and symbiont. LC50s for the three tests were similar and averaged 6.53 ± 0.47 mg/L nominal concentration BP-3 (4.45 mg/L measured dissolved BP-3). BP-3 did not initiate coral bleaching or show a significant loss of symbionts from the coral tissue in this species as reductions in measurements used for bleaching (i.e. visual color, color saturation and photosynthetic pigment concentrations) were only seen concurrently with tissue loss (i.e. at ≥2.5 mg/L nominal concentration BP-3). Polyp retraction, the most sensitive endpoint of this test, was seen to be a sub-lethal behavioral response to BP-3 exposure. Using the calculated LC50 with measured concentrations from a high-quality UV filter monitoring study in Hawaii, a preliminary, conservative risk quotient for BP-3 was calculated at 0.032. These results suggest that BP-3 likely does not pose an acute risk of mortality to G. fascicularis and additional testing is required to determine sublethal impacts of BP-3 under environmentally relevant concentrations and longer-term chronic exposures. This study highlights complications in conducting toxicity tests with organic UV filters including under-estimations of exposure concentrations and provides recommendations to improve these methods for better comparisons between studies.
- Subjects :
- Environmental Engineering
biology
Coral Reefs
Coral bleaching
Coral
UV filter
Photosynthetic pigment
Anthozoa
biology.organism_classification
Pollution
Acute toxicity
Benzophenones
chemistry.chemical_compound
chemistry
Galaxea fascicularis
Environmental chemistry
Toxicity
Animals
Environmental Chemistry
Oxybenzone
Sunscreening Agents
Waste Management and Disposal
Water Pollutants, Chemical
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00489697
- Volume :
- 796
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Science of The Total Environment
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....129a8b721f4124005c9ea11c3b6f8031