POWER-STATION THERMAL EFFLUENTS AND MARINE CRUSTACEANS

Recent studies on the responses of marine crustaceans to the conditions of power station cooling water discharges are collated. Three significant aspects of the discharge temperature regime are identified, the higher mean temperature (ΔT = 8-12°C), the absolute temperature, and tidally caused fluctuations in temperature. This temperature regime deters stenothermal species or those near the zoogeographic warmer limit of their distribution, while encouraging species adapted to warmer waters; many species, particularly those from the littoral zone, are tolerant of raised mean temperature, less so for temperature fluctuations. Absolute temperature is a potential problem for all marine crustaceans, regardless of zoogeographic adaptation, if it approaches upper incipient lethal temperatures (commonly around 33°C). The only two "exotic" crustacean species which have occurred in the British waters because of warm water discharges are Brachynotus sexdentatus and Balanus amphitrite. © 1990.