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THESIS APPROVAL

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At this stage, laboratory study on using of aquatic oligochaete in sediment<br />

toxicity test is more limited in Thailand and the tropical region. Thus, to effectively<br />

assess the ecological risk of sediment–associated PAHs, the study concerning the<br />

toxic effects of these chemicals in aquatic oligochaetes is necessary. The main<br />

purpose of this research was to use the tubificid oligochaete Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri<br />

as a proposed test organism in the sediment toxicity testing. This oligochaete species<br />

was chosen due to the highest density (greater than 10,000 ind/m 2 ) established in the<br />

lower Chao Phraya river (Kanchana-Aksorn and Petpiroon, 2006). The experiments<br />

were performed involving naphthalene, one of the predominant PAHs found in<br />

sediments of the Chao Phraya estuary. The study was also to provide some<br />

information on the possibility of L. hoffmeisteri to bioaccumulate such chemicals in<br />

contaminated sediment, and the efficiency on trophic transfer to tilapia fingerling,<br />

Oreochromis niloticus, a test predator. In addition, some considerable detail of<br />

L. hoffmeisteri related to the main aims of this work, such as taxonomic<br />

characteristics, and biological aspects (e.g. sediment inhabit, behavior, growth,<br />

reproduction), is scarce in Thai waters. Despite the current data in distribution studies<br />

(Kanchana-Aksorn and Petpiroon, 2006), there are no other published data available<br />

on the biology so far. The other targets of this study were to afford background on the<br />

morphological appearance of L. hoffmeisteri collected from Chao Phraya estuary,<br />

accompanied with estimating on their specific growth and biological activity in<br />

laboratory culture.<br />

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