Pellets from the Toconao spill do not prevent the development of sea urchin larvae

Although we are used to thinking of mussels, limpets or sea urchins as animals that live stuck to rocks and have little ability to move, the populations of these and many other marine invertebrates are dispersed thanks to their larval stages that live in the plankton and can travel hundreds of miles swept by the currents. The sea urchin larva has a funny Eiffel Tower shape and is called a pluteus larva. In these stages, these animals are much more sensitive to pollution than adults, and for this reason, they are used as models in marine ecotoxicology.

 

We incubated the urchin larvae in leachates (aqueous extracts) of Toconao pellets. We have just seen the results and as the photo illustrates the larvae exposed to the leachates (on the left) are almost as large as those incubated in clean water (on the right). Good news for our coasts. We are currently going to start tests with other organisms because we need to check the effects of the pellets on other important groups such as crustaceans, algae and fish.