Abstract
Ecotoxicology faces the challenge of assessing and predicting the effects of an increasing number of chemical stressors on aquatic species and ecosystems. Herein we review currently applied tools in ecological risk assessment, combining information on exposure with expected biological effects or environmental water quality standards; currently applied effect-based tools are presented based on whether exposure occurs in a controlled laboratory environment or in the field. With increasing ecological relevance the reproducibility, specificity and thus suitability for standardisation of methods tends to diminish. We discuss the use of biomarkers in ecotoxicology including ecotoxicogenomics-based endpoints, which are becoming increasingly important for the detection of sublethal effects. Carefully selected sets of biomarkers allow an assessment of exposure to and effects of toxic chemicals, as well as the health status of organisms and, when combined with chemical analysis, identification of toxicant(s). The promising concept of “adverse outcome pathways (AOP)” links mechanistic responses on the cellular level with whole organism, population, community and potentially ecosystem effects and services. For most toxic mechanisms, however, practical application of AOPs will require more information and the identification of key links between responses, as well as key indicators, at different levels of biological organization, ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services.
Highlights
Ecotoxicology faces the challenge of assessing and predicting the effects of an increasing number of chemical stressors on aquatic species and ecosystems
Ecotoxicology is closely related to, but sometimes distinguished from stress ecology, which considers a broader range of natural stressors such as the effects of temperature or oxygen depletion on individuals, populations and communities, these parameters directly impact on toxicity
There is further separation between ecotoxicology and environmental toxicology, which is often rather artificial, with a tendency of environmental toxicology being more focused on the level of individual organisms, including humans, or cells, and ecotoxicology being more focused on the level of communities and ecosystems
Summary
“People often ask, ‘What is the single most important environmental problem facing the world today?’ The single most important problem is our misguided focus on identifying the single most important problem! ... because any of the dozen problems, if unsolved, would do us great harm and because they all interact with each other.” Jared Diamond [1]. Of the vast number of substances that have been introduced to aquatic systems around the world, a number posing serious environmental threats have primarily been identified either through single-species toxicity testing in the laboratory, or they have been brought to light as a result of observing biological effects in situ. Examples include dichlorodiphenyl-dichloroethylene (DDE) and eggshell thinning in birds [2], sex changes in freshwater fish associated with endocrine disrupting chemicals, EDCs [3], and tumors in marine fish associated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) accumulation [4] These examples highlight the need for techniques that detect overt damage to organisms exposed to. The development of reliable predictive tools to assess the impacts of chemicals as well as robust and sensitive retrospective tools to monitor water quality will be important for advancing this field
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