Abstract

Daphnia magna is used as a model organism to study the consequences of the impact of mutagenic chemicals to natural populations. Adult daphnids were exposed to a mutagenic test compound to test whether their offspring showed effects of induced mutations at exposure levels lower than the No Observed Effect Concentration for growth and reproduction. Life-history parameters were used as test parameters. A concentration-related toxic effect to reproduction could be measured reproducibly in the exposed adult daphnids. However, no indication of a mutagenic effect could be detected in their offspring. This may have been due to the inadequateness of the system to detect induced genetic change.