Ecological relevance assay organisms

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... 

As with sessile animals and plants (see other chapters, this volume), the chemical deterrence of mobile invertebrates is best assessed using an approach in which ecologically relevant consumers are offered palatable food items with chemical extracts coated on, or embedded within, them.7 Assays in which the toxicity of compounds is assessed by dissolving them in the water containing the assay organisms have been repeatedly shown to bear no relation to the effects of compounds when ingested with prey.1 8,9 Most feeding deterrents of mobile invertebrates appear to be lipid-soluble, thus these... 

How can this be presented to the assay organism in a way that is ecologically relevant ... 

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