4.3 Article

Effects of Cd2+ and Pb2+ on Growth and Photosynthesis of Two Freshwater Algae Species

Journal

POLISH JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
Volume 31, Issue 3, Pages 2059-2068

Publisher

HARD
DOI: 10.15244/pjoes/143256

Keywords

heavy metal toxicity; microalgae; growth; chlorophyll; photosynthesis

Funding

  1. University Synergy Innovation Program of Anhui Province [GXXT-2020-075]
  2. General Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China [41877417]
  3. General Program of Anhui Natural Science Foundation [1808085MC79]
  4. Project of Natural Science Research in Universities of Anhui Province [KJ2021A1046]
  5. First-class Specialty in Anhui Province (Biotechnology) [122]
  6. Youth Project of Anhui Natural Science Foundation [1508085QC67]
  7. Project of Anhui Quality Engineering [2019jxtd101]

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Microalgae are indicators of heavy metal pollution, and cadmium and lead are highly toxic to aquatic organisms. This study evaluated the toxicity of Cd2+ and Pb2+ individually and in combination to Scenedesmus acutus and Schroederia sp. from Xin'an River. The results showed that Schroederia sp. had higher tolerance to Cd2+ pollution compared to S. acutus, and Cd2+ had harmful effects on photosynthesis in algae. Pb2+ had minimal toxicity to the algae, but showed antagonistic effects when combined with Cd2+.
Microalgae are biological indicators of heavy metal pollution. Cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) are extremely toxic metals to aquatic organisms. In the present study, single and combined toxicity of Cd2+ and Pb2+ to Scenedesmus acutus and Schroederia sp. collected from the famous Xin'an River (Huangshan City) were evaluated. Treatments with 0.5-2.0 mg/L Cd2+ significantly reduced S. acutus population growth, and treatment with 2.0 mg/L Cd(2+ )significantly decreased Schroederia sp. population growth rate, suggesting a higher tolerance of Schroederia sp. than S. acutus to Cd2+ pollution. In addition, Cd2+ treatments significantly decreased chlorophyll a, carotene contents, and photosynthetic fluorescent parameters rETR(max) and I-k, demonstrating that the harms on photosynthesis might be the underlying mechanism of Cd2+ toxicity to algae. Treatments with 5.0-15.0 mg/L Pb2+ did not significantly affected population growth and photosynthetic pigment content. However, combined exposure to Cd2+ and Pb2+ revealed antagonistic effects on both species. Overall, these results provide basic information to the ecological risk assessments of heavy metal pollution in the Xin'an River Basin.

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