Effect of zinc on osmoregulation ofGammarus duebeni(crustacea: amphipoda) from the estuary and the sewage treatment works at Looe, Cornwall

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Abstract
The osmoregulatory capacity of Gammarus duebeni Liljeborg from the estuary and the sewage treatment works at Looe, Cornwall (South-west England) has been compared. In unpolluted media, certain inter-populational differences in osmoregulatory and cuticle water permeability responses were identified; however, these were not consistent. Estuarine and ‘sewage’ Gammarus showed no haemolymph change when exposed to a range of external zinc concentrations at high salinity (30‰). Impairment of osmoregulatory capacity, relative to non-polluted levels, occurred at low salinity (10‰), but only at zinc concentrations ≥ 500 μg Zn 1-12. For each population, depression of haemolymph osmolality was apparently the result of reduced levels of blood sodium (and presumably chloride) rather than any zinc-induced changes in cuticle water permeability. These results are discussed with reference to previously identified evidence, from these populations, for enhanced zinc tolerance in sewage works gammarids as a result of long-term zinc exposure.

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