Toxic Effects of Zinc on the Development, Growth, and Survival of Red Sea Bream Pagrus major Embryos and Larvae

This study investigated the zinc toxicity to red sea bream Pagrus major embryos and larvae at 18 ± 1°C (33 ± 1‰ in salinity) under laboratory conditions. The acute toxicity tests indicated that zinc 48-h LC50 to embryos and 96-h LC50 to larvae were 4.3 (3.3–6.3; 95% confidence limits) and 10.1 (9.0–11.4) mg l−1, respectively, suggesting that embryos were more sensitive than larvae to zinc exposure. The subchronic toxicity test, in which embryos and larvae were continuously exposed to 0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 mg Zn2+ l−1 solutions for 10 days, demonstrated that waterborne zinc had distinctly toxic effects on the development, growth, and survival of red sea bream embryos and larvae. Zinc exposure at concentrations ≥ 0.5 mg l−1 would lead to a low hatching rate (19–78%, vs. 98% in controls), high mortality (29–91%, vs. 10% in controls), and morphological abnormality (12–77%, vs. 0.3% in controls) in embryos and larvae, while it caused delay in time-to-hatch in embryos at concentrations ≥ 1.0 mg l−1. These four biological parameters were zinc concentration dependent and could be effective bioindicators for evaluating the toxicity of zinc to the early life stage of this fish. Heartbeats of embryos (9–13 beats 10 s−1) were relatively low and were not significantly influenced by zinc concentration, although they rose remarkably with elevated zinc concentration in larvae at the end of the test, particularly when it was ≥ 1.0 mg l−1 (36–38, vs. 31 beats 10 s−1 in controls). The total length (LT) of the larvae at the end of the test was reduced by 12.2% and 15.6% in the 1.0 and 2.0 mg l−1 solutions but did not vary significantly in other solutions in comparison with the controls. Heartbeat and LT were less sensitive to zinc exposure and might not be good biological parameters for determining the toxicity of zinc to the early life stage of red sea bream.