Freshwater cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (FCHABs) alter zooplankton communities, often adversely, through the production of cyanotoxins. While Daphnia magna is frequently used to evaluate the impact of toxicants, it is not commonly found in tropical waters; cladocerans from tropical and subtropical waterbodies should be used in bioassays. Here, we evaluated the impact of crude cyanobacteria extracts on three common, native species (Daphnia laevis, Ceriodaphnia dubia, and Simocephalus vetulus) based on acute and chronic bioassays. We analyzed the toxicity of cyanobacterial consortium collected from Lake Zumpango, Mexico. The FCHAB was dominated by Planktothrix agardhii (1.16 × 106 ind mL-1). A series of freeze/thaw/sonification cycles at 20 kHz was used to extract the toxic metabolites and the concentration of dissolved microcystin-LR equivalents was measured using an ELISA immunological kit. S. vetulus was the most sensitive species, with a median lethal concentration of 0.43 compared to 1.19 µg L-1 of D. magna at 48 h. S. vetulus was also the most sensitive in chronic evaluations, showing a negative rate of population increase (-0.10 d-1) in experiments with 20% crude extract.
Keywords: FCHABs; crude extract; life table; native species; relative sensitivity.