Responses of phytoplankton upon exposure to a mixture of acid mine drainage and high levels of nutrient pollution in Lake Loskop, South Africa.

The relationships between water quality and the phytoplankton community within Lake Loskop were studied during the late summer and autumn of 2008 to evaluate the impacts of acid mine drainage and high nutrient concentrations. The higher concentrations of metal ions and sulphate had adverse effects on certain phytoplankton species in the inflowing riverine zone of Lake Loskop, in comparison to the reference site in the lacustrine zone of the lake, which was dominated by the larger and slower growing late summer species of Coelastrum reticulum Nägeli, Straurastrum anatinum Meyen ex Ralfs and Ceratium hirundinella Müller. The high nutrient concentrations (nitrogen: 17 mg l(-1) and orthophosphate: 0.7 mg l(-1)) during the mid-summer peak of the rainy season were associated with the development of a bloom of the cyanobacterium Microcystis. Water quality data associated with the development of the Microcystis bloom suggest that the aquatic system of Lake Loskop has now entered an alternate, hypertrophic regime. This change overshadowed the adverse effects of high concentrations of heavy metal ions and low pH. Throughout this study, the reference site in the lacustrine zone of Lake Loskop had lower concentrations of metal ions and sulphate, and higher pH values. The response of phytoplankton bioassays on integrated water samples from the different sampling sites did provide potential answers to the reasons for the absence of the algal group Chlorophyceae in the phytoplankton community structure in the riverine zone of the lake.

[1]  M. M. Young,et al.  Copper tolerance in the green alga, Chlorella vulgaris , 1980 .

[2]  B. Whitton,et al.  Use of algae and other plants for monitoring rivers , 1995 .

[3]  Ralph Smith,et al.  Limnology—Inland water ecosystems , 2002, Journal of the North American Benthological Society.

[4]  M. Pardos,et al.  Photosynthetic and population growth response of the test alga Selenastrum capricornutum Printz to zinc, cadmium and suspended sediment elutriates , 1998, Journal of Applied Phycology.

[5]  A. Kaplan,et al.  Dinoflagellate-Cyanobacterium Communication May Determine the Composition of Phytoplankton Assemblage in a Mesotrophic Lake , 2002, Current Biology.

[6]  C. Forsberg,et al.  EUTROPHICATION PARAMETERS AND TROPHIC STATE INDICES IN 30 SWEDISH WASTE-RECEIVING LAKES , 1980 .

[7]  W. T. Edmondson.  VOLLENWEIDER, R. A. 1968. Water management research. Scientific fundamentals of the eutrophication of lakes and flowing waters with particular reference to nitrogen and phosphorus as factors in eutrophication. Organization for Economic Co-operation and De , 1970 .

[8]  F. Bell,et al.  The Problem of Acid Mine Drainage, with an Illustrative Case History , 1996 .

[9]  A. E. Greenberg,et al.  Standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater : supplement to the sixteenth edition , 1988 .

[10]  J. Brookes,et al.  Algal esterase activity as a biomeasure of environmental degradation in a freshwater creek. , 2002, Aquatic toxicology.

[11]  A. Arthington,et al.  The effects of a chronic application of chlorpyrifos on the macroinvertebrate fauna in an outdoor artificial stream system: species responses. , 1995, Ecotoxicology and environmental safety.

[12]  F. Waanders,et al.  Treatment of Mine Water for Sulphate and Metal Removal Using Barium Sulphide , 2004 .

[13]  J. Lund,et al.  The inverted microscope method of estimating algal numbers and the statistical basis of estimations by counting , 1958, Hydrobiologia.

[14]  Midgley,et al.  Surface water resources of South Africa 1990 , 1998 .

[15]  P. Chapman.  Bioassay testing for Australia as part of water quality assessment programmes , 1995 .

[16]  Long-term phytoplankton changes in acid and limed lakes in SW Sweden , 1999, Hydrobiologia.

[17]  S. Bunn.  Biological monitoring of water quality in Australia: Workshop summary and future directions , 1995 .

[18]  F. Parker,et al.  Water Pollution , 1974, Nature.

[19]  C. K. Pallaghy,et al.  The Effect of Sub-Lethal Concentrations of Mercury and Zinc on Chlorella: II. Photosynthesis and Pigment Composition , 1976 .

[20]  S. Azevedo,et al.  Influence of drinking water composition on quantitation and biological activity of dissolved microcystin (cyanotoxin) , 2005, Environmental toxicology.

[21]  T. E. Cloete,et al.  Using a battery of bioassays, benthic phytoplankton and the AUSRIVAS method to monitor long-term coal tar contaminated sediment in the Cache la Poudre River, Colorado. , 2005, Water research.

[22]  A. Botha,et al.  Identification of toxigenic Microcystis strains after incidents of wild animal mortalities in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. , 2009, Ecotoxicology and environmental safety.

[23]  R. J. Porra,et al.  Determination of accurate extinction coefficients and simultaneous equations for assaying chlorophylls a and b extracted with four different solvents: verification of the concentration of chlorophyll standards by atomic absorption spectroscopy , 1989 .

[24]  Z. Mohamed.  Removal of cadmium and manganese by a non-toxic strain of the freshwater cyanobacterium Gloeothece magna. , 2001, Water research.

[25]  J. J. Vuren,et al.  Bioaccumulation of copper and zinc in Oreochromis mossambicus and Clarias gariepinus, from the Olifants River, Mpumalanga, South Africa , 1999 .

[26]  C. Figueredo,et al.  Seasonal variation in the diversity and species richness of phytoplankton in a tropical eutrophic reservoir , 2001, Hydrobiologia.

[27]  Cairns,et al.  Functional Testing of Aquatic Biota for Estimating Hazards of Chemicals , 1989 .

[28]  A. Botha,et al.  Use of PCR based technologies for risk assessment of a winter cyanobacterial bloom in Lake Midmar, South Africa , 2007 .

[29]  D. Grobler,et al.  A note on the occurrence of metals in the Olifants River, Eastern Transvaal, South Africa , 1994 .

[30]  Equilibrium/steady-state concept in phytoplankton ecology , 2003 .

[31]  D. Nies,et al.  Microbial heavy-metal resistance , 1999, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology.

[32]  S. Andrews,et al.  Bacterial iron homeostasis. , 2003, FEMS microbiology reviews.

[33]  D. L. Parker.  IMPROVED PROCEDURES FOR THE CLONING AND PURIFICATION OF MICROCYSTIS CULTURES (CYANOPHYTA) 1 , 1982 .

[34]  M. Vasconcelos,et al.  Cyanobacteria Metal Interactions: Requirements, Toxicity, and Ecological Implications , 2006, Critical reviews in microbiology.

[35]  D. Niyogi,et al.  Effects of Stress from Mine Drainage on Diversity, Biomass, and Function of Primary Producers in Mountain Streams , 2002, Ecosystems.

[36]  B. Middleton.  Surface water resources of South Africa , 1989 .

[37]  E. Willén.  Planktonic diatoms - an ecological review , 1991 .

[38]  D. E. Buetow,et al.  The biology of euglena , 1968 .

[39]  H. Ziegler,et al.  Effect of Sublethal Concentrations of Zinc, Cadmium and Mercury on the Photosynthetic Carbon Reduction Cycle of Euglena , 1993 .

[40]  D. DeNicola.  A review of diatoms found in highly acidic environments , 2000, Hydrobiologia.

[41]  R. Vollenweider,et al.  Scientific fundamentals of the eutrophication of lakes and flowing waters , 1968 .

[42]  F. Bell,et al.  Some problems associated with past mining at a mine in the Witbank coalfield, South Africa , 1997 .

[43]  P. Ross,et al.  A Rapid Bioassay Using the Green Alga Selenastrum capricornutum to Screen for Toxicity in St. Lawrence River Sediment Elutriates , 1988 .

[44]  G. Boyer,et al.  The Occurrence of Cyanobacterial Toxins in Lake Champlain , 2004 .

[45]  Guibin Jiang,et al.  Biomonitoring: an appealing tool for assessment of metal pollution in the aquatic ecosystem. , 2008, Analytica chimica acta.

[46]  S. Romo.  Comparative study of phytoplankton in an oligotrophic soft water lake under different pH-phosphate ranges , 1998, Hydrobiologia.

[47]  P. Thompson,et al.  Aspects of carbon metabolism in the recovery of Selenastrum capricornutum populations exposed to cadmium , 1990 .

[48]  E. Costas,et al.  Occurrence of copper resistant mutants in the toxic cyanobacteria Microcystis aeruginosa: characterisation and future implications in the use of copper sulphate as algaecide. , 2004, Water research.

[49]  G. Rosen.  Phytoplankton indicators and their relations to certain chemical and physical factors , 1981 .

[50]  Wun-cheng Wang,et al.  Plants for Toxicity Assessment , 1990 .

[51]  E. Willén.  A simplified method of phytoplankton counting , 1976 .

[52]  M. Swilling,et al.  Johannesburg, South Africa , 1999 .

[53]  P. Ashton,et al.  The influence of a toxic cyanobacterial bloom and water hydrology on algal populations and macroinvertebrate abundance in the upper littoral zone of Lake Krugersdrift, South Africa , 2009, Ecotoxicology.

[54]  J. Burkholder,et al.  Harmful algal blooms and eutrophication: Nutrient sources, composition, and consequences , 2002 .

[55]  R. F. Fuggle,et al.  Environmental management in South Africa. , 1992 .

[56]  A. J. Shaw.  Heavy Metal Tolerance in Plants: Evolutionary Aspects , 1989 .

[57]  F. Bell,et al.  The effects of acid mine drainage from an old mine in the Witbank Coalfield, South Africa , 2002, Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology.