• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.534-541
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• 2002

The use of triorganotins as insecticides, bacteriocides, and antifouling agents has increased dramatically over the past 30 years, In this paper, to evaluate the acute and chronic toxicity effects of various triorganotins (TBTO, TBTE, CTPT, TBTCI) on the growth of microalgae, Skeletonema costatum, we carried out the short term and long term experiments, respectively. In the short-term experiments, the growth of S. costatum was inhibited by the various triorganotins in the dose dependent manners, but recovered by the time laps. The growth inhibition of triorganotins were decreased in the groups with higher initial cell density. These data were resulted from the dilution effect and the biodegradation of triorganotins by the microalgae. In the long-term experiments, S. costatum died completely at the 1 $\mu$g/L of TBTP and CTPT, but didn't in short-term experiments. The facts suggest that the toxicity of the chronic exposure of triorganotins should be increased in the natural sea water with low phytoplankton density.