Study of the Effect of Mercury Salt on the Presence of Annelida (Lumbricus terrestris) in Soil and the Histological Changes on the Skin Tissue

Abstract

The earthworm is the most beneficial organism for assessing metallic contamination due to the fact that critical high-quality correlations have been determined between earthworm steel concentrations and soil cadmium, copper, lead, zinc, and mercury concentrations. The mercury compounds are very poisonous for most organisms. Here, we investigated the ability of earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris) to HgCl₂ (below laboratory conditions). A study of the effect of five different salt concentrations of mercury chloride (HgCl₂) 1 ppm, 5 ppm, 10 ppm, 50 ppm, and 100 ppm was studied on worm survival and calculation of the concentration required to destroy half the number of worms (LC50). The results showed that there is an inverse relationship between these salt concentrations and the time required to perish 100% of worms. It was found that the concentration of 100 ppm is the lethal concentration of half the number (LC50) of the earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris). The effects of the salt concentrations used confirmed their effect on the experimental worm weights as well, so the concentration of 50 ppm was the most influential on earthworm weights of the type of Lumbricus terrestris, as it caused a reduction 12% of worm weights with a significant difference, while the concentrations 1 ppm and 100 ppm were the least effective, as they caused the worms to decrease by only (5%), while the remaining two concentrations 5 ppm and 10 ppm caused their effect to decrease by 7% only. Thus, it can be concluded that lower worm weights have nothing to do with the lethal concentrations of the heavy metal salt (HgCl₂). The histological study also showed that low concentrations of mercury chloride salt have less effect on earthworms’ skin tissue compared to higher concentrations.