Bioassay of the estuary waters of the Chernaya River (Bay of Sevastopol, Black Sea) using the brine shrimp Artemia (Crustacea: Brachiopoda)

Abstract

The area of Sevastopol Bay is a heterogeneous system, with the estuary of the Chernaya River in the apical part. To assess the ecological status of various parts of the bay and estuary in the summer season of 2018, we determined the oxygen content, salinity, pH, Eh, as well as the proportion of nauplii hatched from the cysts of Artemia sp. in water samples from seven coastal areas, differing in location, hydrological conditions and level of anthropogenic influ­ ence. For different areas, hydrochemical indices of the water sam­ples tested and hatching values of larvae from crustacean eggs are shown to be different; these were significantly lower in the most pol­luted water samples from the estuary area. The possibility of using a set of methods of hydrochemical analysis and biotesting to improve the information content of assessments of the ecological status of coastal sea waters is discussed, using the example of the Bay of Sevastopol and the estuary of the Chernaya River.

Keywords

• estuary
• pollution
• artemia
• cysts
• salinity
• oxygen
• redox potential
• biotesting