Toxicity of sediment‐associated substituted phenylamine antioxidants on the early life stages of Pimephales promelas and a characterization of effects on freshwater organisms

Substituted phenylamine antioxidants (SPAs) are high production volume chemicals that are incorporated into a variety of commercial products (e.g., polymers, dyes, lubricants). There are few data on chronic toxicity of SPAs to fish and no data on the toxicity of SPAs to the early life stages of fish. The physicochemical properties of SPAs would suggest that if they were to enter an aquatic ecosystem they would partition into sediment. Therefore, the present study focused on investigating the chronic effect of sediment‐associated SPAs to the early life stages of the fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas). Eggs and larvae were exposed to sediment spiked with diphenylamine (DPA), N‐phenyl‐1‐napthylamine (PNA), N‐(1,3‐dimethylbutyl)‐N′‐phenyl‐1,4‐phenylenediamine (DPPDA), or 4,4′‐methylene‐bis[N‐sec‐butylaniline] (MBA). The most sensitive endpoint for DPA, PNA, and DPPDA was total survival with 21‐d median lethal concentrations (LC50s) based on concentration in overlying water of 1920, 74, and 35 μg/L, respectively. The most sensitive endpoint for MBA was growth with a 21‐d median effective concentration (EC50) of 71 μg/L. The same endpoints were the most sensitive in terms of concentrations of DPA, PNA, DPPDA, and MBA in sediment (101, 54, 111, and 76 μg/g dry wt, respectively). Species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) were constructed for each SPA based on acute and chronic toxicity data generated in the present study and found in the literature. Overall, P. promelas was in the midrange of chronic sensitivity, with the most sensitive species being Tubifex tubifex. The SSDs indicate that DPA based on concentration in water is the least toxic to aquatic biota of the 4 SPAs investigated. The constructed SSDs indicate that a concentration in water and sediment of 1 μg/L and 1 μg/g dry weight, respectively, would be protective of >95% of the aquatic species tested. Environ Toxicol Chem 2017;36:2730–2738. © 2017 SETAC