Physiological responses and the uptake of cadmium and zinc by the amphipod crustacean Orchestia gammarellus

Abstract

It is concluded that at low salinity the amphipods effect one or more physiological responses that offset any increases in cadmium and zinc uptake rates expected from physico-chemical increases in the availabilities of free metal ions at low salinity. Such physiological responses are induced by changes in total osmolality, as opposed to inorganic salinity, and are not maintained on transfer from low to high osmolality. The physiological response is not explicable only in terms of change of the uptake rate of calcium, nor only in terms of change in apparent water permeability which may play a role at extremely low salinities. -from Authors