ACUTE TOXICITY AND BEHAVIORAL EFFECTS OF

ORGANOPHOSPHORUS ON THE AFRICAN

CATFISH CLARIAS GARIEPINUS (BURCHELL,

1822)

BY

Esmail M. Alhemmali, Usama

M. Mohamed and Abdalla, M.

Baker

Pollution is the addition to the ecosystem of something which has a detrimental

effect on it. One of the most important problems which causes pollution that is

the highly rate of energy usage by modern and growing populations.

Water pollution is the introduction into fresh or ocean waters chemical, physical,

or biological material that degrades the quality of the water and affects the

organisms living in it.

There are a lot of pollutants which surrounding organisms. Pesticides are one of

the major pollutants, which caused indirectly the negative impact on the aquatic

environment, including fishs

THE INSECTICIDES ARE CLASSIFIED INTO FOUR TYPES:

A. Organophosphate compounds

Diazinon, malathion, parathion, etc

B. Organochlorine compounds

DDT, aldrin, chlordane, etc…,

C. Carbonate compounds

Carbofuran

D. Botanicals compounds

Amitrol, diquat, endothall, etc…,

Diazinon is one of the insecticides used to control

pest insects and have some features such as:

A low persistence in soil.

the half-life is 2 to 6 weeks.

Colorless liquid.

solubility in water 60 mg/l (20°C).

1-Widely distributed (Graaf and

Janssen, 1996).

2-used as biomarker for physiological

changes serve as of environmental

pollution (Kock et al., 1996; Mishra

and shukla, 2003).

3-Commercially used as food source

for humans.

4-Widely used for aquaculture

(Adham, 2002 and Figis, 2004).

5- It has a high growth rate.

THE PRESENT STUDY AIMS TO:

1. Determination the lethal concentration of diazinon (LC50) of

Clarias gariepinus.

2. Study effects of diazinon on fish behaviors

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

C. gariepinus specimens will be caught from the River Nile at Assiut,

Egypt. Fish immediately were transported to the fish laboratory in the

Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Assiut University.

Fish specimens will be acclimatized for two weeks before being used

in the experimental study.

Specimens collection

Fish specimens will be classified into 11 groups according to

Diazinon doses (Table 1). Each group contains 7 specimens of C.

gariepinus of mean weight about 300 g, and mean total length about

35 cm.

Experiments

Total

mortality

Time

NDoses

MgL-1After

96h

After

72hAfter 48hAfter 24h

000007Control

3330074.8

3321076.6

4421077.8

4433079.00

77430712.00

77430713.50

77740715.00

77743716.00

77774718.00

77775720.00

Table 1. Average mortality pattern for acute toxicity test (24 -96 h).

Statistical Analyses

LC50 concentrations were determined by using the method of [Finney, 1971] for probit

analysis.

RESULTS

A- Normal behaviors

vigorous activity.

static equilibrium and active swimming.

normal gill movement.

natural color with darkness brown.

Rapid and erratic swimming.

sudden quick movements air gulping.

B- Abnormal behaviors

rolling movements and swimming on the back.

Reduction in the feeding activity.

Fins haemorrhage.

Loss of some skin parts.

CONCLUSION

Diazinon is a widely used organophosphorus pesticide in agriculture and

environmental health, hence it is adverse effects on nontarget animals,

especially on fish is to be determined. The present study therefore aimed to

determination the LC50 of diazinon on adult's African catfish; Clarias gariepinus

(11.76 mg L-1) and behavior changes caused by diazinon.

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