Correlations of Vibrio fischeri bacteria test data with bioassay data for other organisms.

Linear relationships of the median lethal concentrations of several hundreds of chemicals for a variety of organisms with Vibrio fischeri median effective concentrations are investigated. Significant correlations can be developed for many aquatic species including the fishes fathead minnow, bluegill, catfish, goldfish, goldorfe, guppy, killifish, rainbow trout, sheepshead minnow, and zebrafish; the water flea Daphnia sp.; such crustaceans as Artemia sp. and Crangon sp.; the ciliate Tetrahymena pyriformis; and algae, such as Chlorella sp. These interspecies relationships can be used to estimate order-of-magnitude type toxic effects of many substances for these aquatic organisms. Highly significant relationships can be obtained when selecting compounds on a chemical basis, such as alcohols, ketones, aromatics, etc., which allow the calculation of the compounds' toxicities to the corresponding aquatic species with increased accuracy and confidence. Analogous correlations with mammalian (rat and mouse) oral, intraperitoneal, and intravenous median lethal dose (LD50) data are much weaker than those for most aquatic species. However, there are significant differences between these three routes of administration and the intravenous LD50 data show the best relationship with the Vibrio data.