Acute Effects of Oil Dispersant and No.0 Diesel Oil on Sea Urchin, Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus

Abstract

The acute toxicities of water-accomodated fractions(WAFs) of No.0 diesel oil and dispersed water-accomodated fractions(dis-WAFs) on sea urchin, Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus were studied and tissue-specific response against oxidative stress were analyzed in this paper. Dispersed WAFs of No.0 diesel oil was found to be more toxic to sea urchin than WAFs. 24, 48, 72, 96-h EC50 values of WAFs were 18.2 mg/L, 15.5 mg/L, 11.5 mg/L and 9.5mg/L respectively; and those of dis-WAFs were 11.7 mg/L, 9.1mg/L, 7.4mg/L and 5.1mg/L respectively. GC-MS analysis showed that more aromatic compounds dissolve into the sea water after adding chemical dispersant to oil. Followed by the exposure time, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase(CAT) and glutathione S-transferase(GST) activities in intestine were induced first, and then decreased gradually. The dose-effect relationship occurrs in 13d samples; SOD , CAT and GST activities of all concentration groups were recovered to the corresponding control level after 11d recovery experiment. The activities first increased in short time at low concentration of WAFs, and was significantly depressed at high concentrations. SOD, CAT and GST had important roles in detoxification, and showed great potential as biomarkers for benthic marine oil pollution.