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Toxicity of wood leachate to algae Desmodesmus subspicatus and plant Lemna minor

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Abstract

Wood is one of the extensively used goods on the earth due to its large accessibility and usage in a wide range of human life. When woods are exposed to aquatic media, leachates are generated which may affect the quality of water and damage aquatic life into which they are discharged. This research seeks to evaluate the toxicity of linden (Tilia cordata), larch (Larix decidua) from the Czech Republic, cedrela (Cedrela odorata) and emire (Terminalia ivorensis) from Ghana wood leachates to two aquatic organisms (Desmodesmus subspicatus and Lemna minor). In algal and duckweed toxicity tests, these plants were exposed to different concentrations of wood leachate with nutrient medium creating concentration rates, 20, 30, 45, 67, and 100% v/v. High concentration of phenols and heavy metals may have contributed to toxicity. It was observed that the various wood leachates were inhibitory to the growth rate of algae and duckweed with emire exhibiting the highest toxicity with IC50 of 30.04% and 28.58% and larch the lowest toxicity with IC50 of 51.18% and 49.57% in relation to growth rate and chlorophyll respectively, hence indicating confirmed and potential toxicity of the various wood leachates to the aquatic organisms.

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to acknowledge the Department of Environmental Chemistry of the University of Chemistry and Technology, for allowing us to use their laboratories for our research work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Chemistry, University of Chemistry and Technology, Technická 5, Praha 6-Dejvice, 166 28, Prague, Czech Republic

    Lyndon N.A. Sackey, Klára A. Mocová & Vladimír Kočí

  2. Laboratory of Plant Biotechnologies, Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Rozvojová 263, 165 02, Prague, Czech Republic

    Šárka Petrová

Authors
  1. Lyndon N.A. Sackey
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  2. Klára A. Mocová
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  3. Šárka Petrová
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  4. Vladimír Kočí
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Contributions

L.N.A.S.: conceptualization and design of the article, experimental works, data analysis, literature search, writing-original draft preparation, drafting of the article, revision to the text, and final approval of the article.

K.A.M.: conceptualization and data analysis, critical revision of the article for important intellectual content review of the article, and final approval of the article.

Š.P.: experimentation and data analysis, critical revision of the article for important intellectual content, revision to the text, and final approval of the article.

V.K.: supervision, revision to the text, and final approval of the article.

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Correspondence to Vladimír Kočí.

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Sackey, L.N., Mocová, K.A., Petrová, Š. et al. Toxicity of wood leachate to algae Desmodesmus subspicatus and plant Lemna minor. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 67150–67158 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15319-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15319-x

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