In this study, I investigated the response of aquatic oligochaete, Tubifex tubifex to environmental disturbances
such as temperature, substrate, and toxic chemical. First, I reviewed literature on ecotoxicology of aquatic
oligochaetes. I searched literature from a database ‘google scholar’ by using keywords such as aquatic, oligochaete, and toxicity. The literature were summarized according to publication year, species, test methods, and chemicals with 133 articles published from 1953 to 2015 from the database.
Among them, 58 papers (43.6% of total) have been published in 1990s. Lumnbriculus variegatus, Tubifex tubifex, and Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri are the three most frequently studied aquatic oligochaete species.
Oligochaetes display varying toxicological responses to different toxic chemicals. The results on the ecotoxicological study with aquatic oligochaetes revealed the possibility of the development of early warning system using aquatic oligochaetes to monitor aquatic ecosystem disturbance. Second, the sediment preference of T. tubifex as well as its response to the changes of temperature were studied in a laboratory experiment.
T. tubifex preferred substrates with smallest particle size. Increase in water temperature had a significant effect on the activity of T. tubifex. At low water temperature, the activity was low, and the body coiled and constricted. With the increase in water temperature, the body of T. tubifex gradually relaxed and became
linear, and its activity increased. Upon exposured to copper, its body length and behavioral parameters such as speed and acceleration decreased significantly. Body length and speed were significantly different even at 0.1
mg/L copper concentration. The copper exposure experiment using T. tubifex colony showed that the area of the colony decreased immediately after copper treatment at 1.0 mg/L . 0.01 mg/L concentrations. The decrease in colony area was proportional to the logarithmic scale of copper concentration and the area decreased until 10-15 min following copper treatment. These results of this study could be applied for the development of early warning system using aquatic oligochaetes to monitor disturbance in aquatic ecosystem.