The toxicity of exogenous nickel to soil-dwelling springtail Folsomia candida in relation to soil properties and aging time

Nickel (Ni) is a toxic metal, but studies on Ni toxicity to soil-dwelling springtail are fairly limited, and did not consider the effects of various soil properties and long aging time. To address this, the chronic toxicity of Ni to model organism-Folsomia candida in relation to soil properties and aging time were evaluated in the laboratory study. The results showed that compared to the soils aged only for 7 d, the concentrations causing 50% mortality (LC50) and inhibiting 50% reproduction (EC50) basing measured total Ni in four soils aged for 120 d increased by 1.30-1.94 fold and 1.27-1.82 fold, respectively. Furthermore, the aging effects significantly correlated with soil pH. The toxicity values of Ni differed in ten soils aged for 120 d, the LC50 values were 279-4025 mg/kg and the EC50 values were 133-1148 mg/kg. When calculating the toxicity values basing water soluble and CaCl2 extracted Ni, the variations in LC50 values between ten soils decreased, while the variations in EC50 values increased. Regression analysis indicated that soil pH was the most important single factor predicting soil Ni toxicity to springtail, the combination of soil pH and OM could best explain Ni toxicity variance in ten soils (89.1% of the variance in LC50 values and 89.6% of the variance in EC50 values).