State of the art of Brazilian ecotoxicology

Abstract

At the 14th Annual SETAC North America Meeting, daSilva et al. (1993) presented a poster with a similar title as thisLearned Discourse, in which they commented on the noveltyof ecotoxicological science in Brazil, necessitating theadoption of methods and organisms from countries withtemperate climates. Almost 20 years have gone by, and wedecided to focus on the same subject to assess the develop-ment of Brazilian ecotoxicology. We discuss 3 topics:publications produced and their impact factor, the ecologicalcoherence of these publications, and national regulations thatemploy ecotoxicological testing of any type or form.We carried out a bibliometric analysis of the internationalpublications in ecotoxicology from scientists working inBrazil, with a simultaneous evaluation of the impact level ofthe journals in which such articles have been published. Asearch of articles from scientists working in Brazil in the fieldof ecotoxicology was carried out using the Scopus data bankfor 1993 through 2009, using the expression ‘‘ecotox ’’(article title, abstract, and keywords)þBrazil (affiliation).The evaluation of impact produced by the publicationsanalyzed was obtained from the citation terms of the SCImagoJournal & Country Rank (SJR). In addition, the h-index,which is based on the distribution of citations received by agiven researcher’s publication, was calculated to quantifythe scientific productivity, number of articles published, andthe frequency those articles have been cited. Only articlesauthored by at least one Brazilian scientist affiliated to aBrazilian institution were considered.The Brazilian scientific production of articles indexed atScopus was relatively low in the 1990s, not quite reaching12%, whereas in the 2000s, this number correspondedto 88% from the 212 hits. The number of publications hasbeen increasingly steadily, reaching almost 24% in 2009. Thepercentage of Brazilian publications in relation to otherpublications varied from 0% in 1993 to 4% in 2009. The 212articles have been published in 99 different journals indexedto the SJR; their impact factor varied between 0.0 and 0.574(mean¼0.131). The most popular journal was Ecotoxicologyand Environmental Safety, with 23 articles; however, itsimpact factor was slightly under the mean. The h-index forall articles was 19, at least 19 publications were cited 19times; for every year between 1993 and 2009, we detected anh equal to the number of years studied. Finally, we comparedthe percentage of production by Brazilian scientists incomparison to the world, and this value for the 2000s was2.3%. This value is low for a country that has an economyamong the 10 largest in the world. In summary, there has beenan increase in the level of publications, but these numbers arestill relatively low, relative to the international significance ofthe country.The 2nd part of this Learned Discourse, from Krull andBarros (in press in the Journal of the Brazilian Society ofEcotoxicology), evaluates aquatic ecotoxicology in Brazil basedon the criteria for test organism selection; the most usedspecies, routes, types of exposures, and endpoints; and, theimportance given to multispecies and in situ tests. A total of227 publications on aquatic ecotoxicology, both national andinternational, authored by Brazilian researchers were ana-lyzed, after a search using the platforms Web of Knowledge,Science Direct, and SCIELO, and through databases for thespecific journals Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry andJournal of the Brazilian Society of Ecotoxicology. We observedthat, among the reasons for test organism selection, the origin(that is, native species) was the most used. Although ‘‘nativespecies’’ was the main criterion mentioned, 47.4% of thestudies did not report whether the species was native.Moreover, the 3 most used species were Daphnia magna, D.similis, and Danio rerio, all exotic species. Another interestingobservation was that only 52% of all publications indicatedclearly the reasons for the choice of species selection. In situassays, as well as multispecies tests, represented less than 5%of all publications. Acute laboratory ecotoxicological tests,using water as the route of exposure and evaluating mortalityas the endpoint, were the most frequent tests. We found thatthe majority of assays employed standardized tests with exoticspecies, few in situ methods were developed, few studies usedsediment as a route of exposure, and few methods weredeveloped at higher levels of biological organization. Ourresults suggest that there is an urgent need to develop moreecologically relevant tests, that ecotoxicological tests usinglocal species rather than those used in temperate waters shouldbe developed, and that adequate ecotoxicological experimen-tation that might be used for environmental managementshould be designed.The 3rd part of this Learned Discourse involves a quicklook at Brazilian environmental law that uses ecotoxicology inany manner. Three resolutions of the Brazilian EnvironmentalCouncil—344/04, 357/05, and 430/11—are relevant. Thefirst resolution (344/04) established the general frameworkand minimum procedures for the evaluation of dredgedmaterial from national waters. Despite the known impactof dredging, ecotoxicological tests are required only whenelevated concentrations of Hg, Cd, Pb, As, or polycyclicaromatic hydrocarbons are present. However, the purposeof conducting those tests is unclear as is what should bedone with the results. Resolution 357/05, which deals withthe classification of aquatic ecosystems, also establishes theconditions and patterns for the dumping of industrialeffluents, employing some toxicological testing. However,the emphasis is on using only the physical, chemical, andbacteriological parameters (Oliveira and Marques 2008).Moreover, the ecotoxicological tests are used only to complywith a bureaucratic demand, because no penalties apply iftoxicity is found.A more specific resolution is 430/11, recently published,which is intended to improve resolution 357/05, as far aseffluent toxicity is concerned. However, this resolutionlowers the concept of aquatic ecosystems or water bodies toreceiving bodies, implying that all aquatic ecosystems canreceive effluents. The concept of water body carrying capacity