Effects of dimethoate on rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus using multigeneration toxicity tests

As important members of the zooplankton community and sources of food for fish, rotifers are used extensively in ecotoxicological research to assess the health of the environment and safety of compounds. However, most rotifer toxicity tests are only conducted using rotifer neonates derived from unexposed mothers, thus ignoring the potential transfer of contaminants from mother to offspring. To understand better the mother to offspring exposure, a multigenerational study was conducted using three successive generations (F₀, F₁ and F₂) of the common freshwater rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus to investigate the toxic effects of the widely used organophosphate pesticide, dimethoate (O, O-dimethyl S-methylcarbamoylmethyl phosphorodithioate). When the F₀ generation was exposed to five pesticide concentrations, the population growth rate (r) displayed symptoms of hormesis, characterized by the conversion of low-concentration stimulation to high-concentration inhibition. Despite this observation, the exposure to any given concentration of dimethoate reduced the population growth rates of the F₁ and F₂ generation rotifers. Significant differences existed between the F₀, F₁ and F₂ rotifers for the population growth rate under dimethoate stress: F₂ individuals were more sensitive than F₁, whereas the F₁ individuals were more sensitive than F₀. The results indicated that the parental exposure to a given toxic stress could result in increased sensitivity and decreased fitness in the offspring. This study illustrates the utility of multigenerational toxicity tests, which may better reflect and more accurately predict the effects of long-term pesticide exposure to aquatic organisms at the population level.