The Multispecies Freshwater Biomonitor and its application in behavioral ecology, ecotoxicology and online biomonitoringA. GerhardtLimCo International, Ecotoxicology, Ibbenbueren, GermanyThe Multispecies Freshwater Biomonitor (MFB) records the behavior (e.g. locomotion, gill ventilation) and mortality (immobility) of all species of aquatic invertebrates and vertebrates of a size larger than 2 mm in a quantitative way on a semi-continuous, almost real-time basis. The non-optical recording principle is based on quadropole impedance conversion. The organism is exposed in a flow-through test chamber with 2 pairs of stainless steel electrode plates attached to the inner chamber wall, one current-carrying electrode pair generating a high frequency alternating current and one non-current carrying electrode pair which senses the changes in the electrical field provoked by a the organisms’ movements in the test chamber. This system has successfully been used with ca. 30 different aquatic invertebrate and vertebrate species, and has recently been applied to record the movements of oligochaetes and isopods in soil and sediment. The MFB has been used for behavioral studies (e.g. phototaxis of daphnids, emergence of chironomids), for ecotoxicity testing (metals, acidity, whole effluents using crustacea, insecta and fish as test species) and online biomonitoring of water quality of surface water and bank filtrate water from the River Rhine with crustacea species. The MFB can also be used in situ at remote locations with autark power supply driven by photovoltaik. Apart from the presentation of the method, actual results from the different above mentioned fields of applications will be presented. Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2005 , 5th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The Netherlands. © 2005 Noldus Information Technology bv |