Ecological relevance

A proper assessment of the ability of chemicals, or mixtures of chemicals, to act as endocrine disrupters requires a multi-tiered approach which is able to identify mechanisms, give early warning of adverse effects and identify which of these effects is likely to be ecologically relevant. A strategy has been proposed by Depledge and Billinghurst " and is outlined below. 

Batt AL, Kostich MS, Lazorchak JM (2008) Analysis of ecologically relevant pharmaceuticals in wastewater and surface water using selective solid-phase extraction and UPLC-MS/ MS. Anal Chem 80 5021-5030... 

With improvements in scientific knowledge and related technology, there is an expectation that more environmentally friendly pesticides will continue to be introduced, and that ecotoxicity testing procedures will become more sophisticated. There is much interest in the introduction of better testing procedures that work to more ecologically relevant end points than the lethal toxicity tests that are still widely used. Such a development should be consistent with the aims of organizations such as FRAME and ECVAM, which seek to reduce toxicity testing with animals. Mechanistic biomarker assays have the potential to be an important part of... 

Hayes, T.B., Collins, A., and Lee, M. et al. (2002). Hermaphroditic, demasculinized frogs after exposure to the herbicide atrazine at low ecologically relevant doses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 99, 5476-5480. 

Doelman P, Jansen E, Michels M, Van-Til M (1994) Effects of heavy metals in soil on microbial diversity and activity as shown by the sensitivity-resistance index, an ecological relevant parameter. Biol Fertil Soils 17 177-184... 

Barata C, Alanon P, Gutierrez-Alonso S, Riva MC, Fernandez C, Tarazona JV (2008) A Daphnia magna feeding bioassay as a cost effective and ecological relevant sublethal toxicity test for environmental risk assessment of toxic effluents. Sci Total Environ 405(l-3) 78-86... 

Korver, R.M. and J.B. Sprague. 1989. Zinc avoidance by fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) computerized tracking and greater ecological relevance. Canad. Jour. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 46 494-502. 

The expanding field of avian immunoecology has provided strong evidence that suppressed immunity leads to ecologically relevant consequences in wild birds. In a review of 12 immune function studies, immune responses were the most significant predictors of subsequent survival of young wild birds [107], In an assessment of 280 introduction attempts in 38 avian species, immunocompetence as assessed by the PHA skin response was an important positive predictor of the ability of birds to colonize new areas (i.e., found new local populations) [108], Similar assessments of survival, fitness, and dispersal ability should be conducted within the context of immunotoxicological studies of wild birds. 

The vulnerability of marine mammals to environmental pollution provides an ecologically-relevant context for marine mammal immunotoxicology. Often situated at the top of aquatic food chains, marine mammals are exposed to high concentrations of a complex mixture of persistent contaminants, many of which are known to be immu-notoxic in laboratory animals. Marine mammal immunotoxicology came into its own in... 

An animal s needs for stimulus diversity are difficult both to define and quantify (Carlstead 1996). Enrichment is often anthropomorphically rather than ecologically relevant (Chamove 1989), and due to human sensory biases we may fail to realize the importance of olfaction to less charismatic species, or those species with lower perceived levels of olfactory awareness (Hancox 1990 Somerville and Broom 1998). 

One role of cyanobacterial allelochemicals may be to alter the motility and distribution of competing photoautotrophs. In a recent study, Kearns and Hunter (2001) examined the effects of toxic metabolites from the filamentous cyanobacterium A. flos-aquae on a unicellular phytoplankton species, Chlamydomonas rein-hardtii. A. flos-aquae synthesizes both microcystins as well as anatoxins, providing the authors with an ecologically relevant opportunity to assess the individual and combinatorial effects of these toxins on an alga. 

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