Ir. H.R. (Henrique) Anselmo

PhD-student

Title PhD-project
Development and application of a marine invertebrate bioassay with aquacultured heart urchin (Echinocardium cordatum) for assessing the toxic effects of current marine POP mixtures for early life stage development and metamorphosis.

Project summary
Early life stages of mammals, fish and amphibians appear to be the most sensitive to toxic effects of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). It is assumed that the early life stages of invertebrate species, namely the heart urchin, will also suffer of sub-lethal effects as a result of exposure to POPs. The present project proposes to develop a early life stage (ELS) and metamorphosis assay using an ecologically relevant marine invertebrate species, the heart urchin. This species was selected because it is already used in ecotoxicological studies, since recently it can be aquacultured in our laboratories, and it has a thyroid-hormone dependent metamorphosis as vertebrate species have. Moreover, there is a lack of sensitive bioassays using marine model species, and it might even to be used as an invertebrate model species that can potentially replace vertebrate (e.g. fish) studies.