Using Bioassays for Testing Seawater Quality in Greece - Article Review

Review:

Using Bioassays for Testing Seawater Quality in Greece

By: A. Kungolos, P. Samaras, and E. Koutseris

            This article review is about the use of two bioassays: Artemia Test and Microtox Test in testing the quality of seawater in Thermaikos Gulf, Pagassitikos Gulf and Skiathos Island in Northern Aegean Sea. The use of chemical analysis in testing specific compounds present in water proves to be a helpful method in improving water quality. However, aside from its high cost, it also does not detect the synergistic and antagonistic effects of compounds mixed in an environment. Due to this, several agencies including the European Union Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in USA have already initiated the integration of chemical and biological parameters in testing fresh and sea water. This paper then investigates the use of two bioassays as a biological parameter to test water quality, the Artemia Test and Microtox Test that uses brine shrimp Artemia franciscana and Vibrio fischeri, as a test organism respectively. Literatures are limited in the coverage of toxicity in real environment so this paper aims to furthermore analyze the quality, variation through time, sensitivity and comparison of bioassays. The method study started by the collection of 1L water samples from shallow waters in seven locations Thessaloniki coastal area and 13 sampling sites in the coastal area of Magnesia prefecture. Samples were selected to cover the range of places influence by anthropogenic activities. Microtox and Artemia Test were done after on the day or 24 hours after the water samples are transferred to the laboratory. Results in Atermia Test were only valid mortality of control did not exceed 10% where for Microtox Test toxicity results were expressed as % toxicity (15 min) = (I_t - I_o)/I_o X 100. Results show that toxicity of seawater on A. franciscana is low and there is a clear improvement on the quality of water between September 1997 and May 2000. Microtox test showed that the use of V. fischeri is more sensitive than the Artemia test. It showed that the used of the latter is useful because it has simpler procedure but Microtox test is a more reliable procedure. The use of bioassay as a supplementary procedure to chemical analysis is important for the assessment of water quality.

            In this study, the researchers were successful in attaining their objective on trying to assess the seawater quality in Greece when the two bioassays were able to detect the toxicity of the seawater; only that Vibrio fischeri is more reliable over the A. franciscana bioassay. Moreover, we say the researchers were successful because they were able to draw the difference of the water quality through the years even if both bioassays had different sensitivities. We also agree with the recommendation of them to have a variety of assays to detect the quality of water because there is no single organism that is sensitive to all potential pollutants.