Individual and combined toxicity of cadmium, copper and mercury to Mytilus galloprovincialis.

The individual and combined toxicity of cadmium, copper and mercury, in Mytilus galloprovincialis were investigated. For individual metals the ranking of toxicity was Hg>Cd>Cu with EC50 values of 0.69, 7.40 and 8.61 ìg/l.. To identify the kind of interaction in binary and ternary mixtures among metals the additive index (S) was calculated. Marking & Dawson’s additive index ranged from -19.06 to -5.99, indicating antagonistic effects.