Lumbriculus variegatus
Aquatic oligochaetes like Lumbriculus play an important role in aquatic sediments. By bioturbation of the sediment and by serving as prey these animals can have a strong influence on the bioavailablity of such substances to other organisms. They burrow into the sediment and ingest sediment particles, which insures, exposure of the test organism to the test substance via all possible uptake routes.
Lumbriculus variegatus is reared inhouse and is used for acute toxicity tests and for water-sediment studies following OECD guideline No. 225.
Acute toxicity studies are performed with adult test organisms in microtiter plates for 96 hours. Endpoints are mortality and effects like lysis, paralysis, lack of haemolymph circulation and decoloration of the organism.
For water sediment studies synchronised worms of similar physiological state are used.
They will be introduced into the sediment and after a period of 28 days they will be counted and the physiological state (large complete worms, recently fragmented worms or worms with regenerated body regions) is determined and can be used for further interpretation of the results.
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If you are interested to know more about this test system please contact: KatrinWeber@eurofins.com
