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ppm, the activity was not concentrate during the hours of darkness (Fig. 1). The
analysis of Cu content in tissues of amphipods raise with increasing of the exposure
concentration (56 ppm in controls, 105 and 136 ppm in animals exposed, respectively,
to 10 and 20 ppm of Cu).
Fig. 1 - Daily locomotors activity of control sandhoppers (A), exposed to 10 ppm (B) and 20 ppm of
Cu (C) recorded during the hours of darkness (black bars) and the light (white bars). In each
graph the values of Sign-test are also reported. In C the scale has been changed for graphical
reasons.
Attività locomotoria giornaliera registrata nei talitri di controllo (A), esposti a 10 ppm (B) e a
20 ppm di Cu (C) durante le ore notturne (barre nere) e diurne (barre bianche). In ogni
grafico è riportato il valore del Sign-test. Nella fig. C la scala è stata cambiata per esigenze
grafiche.
Conclusions – The behavioural responses observed in our study have also been
reported in the freshwater amphipods Gammarus pulex exposed to different
concentrations of Cu in water (Mills et al., 2006). Moreover our findings are also
supported by the LC50 (Ungherese and Ugolini, 2009) for T.saltator. In fact, at lower
concentration (10 ppm) than LC50 (13.28 ppm), sandhoppers increase their locomotor
activity. In contrast, amphipods exposed to higher concentration (20 ppm) than LC50
show a noticeable decrease of locomotor activity as possible consequence of toxicity of
Cu. In conclusion our data demonstrate that the system utilized can detect
modifications in locomotor activity pattern between amphipods exposed to clean and
Cu contaminated sand and the observed difference could be used as exposure
biomarkers. Moreover, our results demonstrate that sandhoppers take up Cu from sand
in a dose - dependent way.
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