An Integrated Study of Labelled Contaminant or Substrate-Biological Species Interaction in Aquaculture

The first 3 years of the study were devoted to field experimentation on the fate of a non-persistent widely used pesticide (parathion) in a fish pond ecosystem and its impact on the food- chain organisms from algae to fish. During this period the effects of a single application of parathion were evaluated. The results of these experiments revealed that although certain biotic components of the community were adversely affected the overall effect on the biotic structure and function was short-lived. The system was characterized by a rapid recovery (Gasith and Perry, 1980). The current research was undertaken to evaluate the impact on the aquatic foodchain organisms of repeated applications of parathion at approximately weekly intervals