A short-term acute toxicity assay for willow trees growing in contaminated solution or in polluted soil was developed and tested. The test apparatus consists of an Erlenmeyer flask with a prerooted tree cutting growing in it. Growth and reduction of transpiration are used to determine toxicity. Transpiration is closely related to photosynthesis and growth, but is easier and faster to measure and can be measured without disturbance of the test system. Plants are grown for 24 h in uncontaminated nutrient solution before the toxicant is added to determine the initial transpiration. The loss of weight is expressed as % decrease after 48 and 72 h or longer compared to the initial transpiration, divided by the transpiration of control plants. More toxicity parameters are growth and water use efficiency of the plants. The sensitivity of the test was evaluated with 3,5-dichlorophenol. EC50 values between 5.8 and 9.6 mg/L were found. This is similar to the results from algal growth rate tests. The willow tree toxicity test may be useful for determining the site-specific toxicity of polluted soils and for terrestrial risk assessment of new chemicals and pesticides.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this article Subscribe and saveSpringer+ Basic
€34.99 /Month
Price includes VAT (Germany)
Instant access to the full article PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others Explore related subjectsDiscover the latest articles and news from researchers in related subjects, suggested using machine learning. Author information Authors and AffiliationsDepartment of Environmental Science and Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Building 115, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark, , , , , , DK
S. Trapp, K. C. Zambrano & K. O. Kusk
Department of Marine Ecology and Microbiology, National Environmental Research Institute, PO Box 358, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark, , , , , , DK
U. Karlson
Received: 8 November 1999/Accepted: 28 February 2000
About this article Cite this articleTrapp, S., Zambrano, K., Kusk, K. et al. A Phytotoxicity Test Using Transpiration of Willows. Arch. Environ. Contam. Toxicol. 39, 154–160 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/s002440010091
Issue Date: August 2000
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s002440010091
RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.4