title: Acute toxicity of vanadium to the threespine stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus.
abstract: Vanadium is widely distributed, occurring in many types of minerals, coal, and petroleum. Anthropogenic sources of vanadium originate from the production, processing, and wastes of these materials. The aquatic toxicity of vanadium to fish species is not well characterized. This study focused on the three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus, a small and widely distributed euryhaline species of fish. The three-spined stickleback is used as an effluent-monitoring species in both Canada and the United States. Five 96-h static renewal acute toxicity tests were performed in moderately hard water with adult fish. The geometric mean and range of the five 96-h LC(50)s based on measured concentrations of total vanadium in the test solution were 3.17 and 2.35-4.07 mg V/L, respectively. A conservative estimation of a safe concentration of vanadium that would not affect survival of adult three-spined sticklebacks over a 96-h exposure period in moderately hard water is approximately 0.30 mg V/L. A comparison with other fish species previously tested suggests that the three-spined stickleback is intermediate in sensitivity to vanadium. Information reported from this study may be useful in effluent toxicity identification evaluations and ecological risk assessments related to vanadium.
authors.affiliation: Blasland, Bouck & Lee, Inc., 1670 Corporate Circle, Suite 200, Petaluma, California 94954, USA. jgravenmier@bbl-inc.com
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Gravenmier
authors.forename: D W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Johnston
authors.forename: W R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Arnold
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods; D007928:Lethal Dose 50; D018570:Risk Assessment; D023701:Smegmamorpha; D014639:Vanadium / Q000633:toxicity*; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid; D014873:Water Pollutants / Q000633:toxicity*
chemical_list: D014873:Water Pollutants; D014639:Vanadium