Pesticide toxicity endpoints in aquatic ecosystems (original) (raw)
To adequately protect aquatic ecosystems from impact by anthropogenic perturbations it is necessary to distinguish what is safe from what is not. This review examines approaches to this problem in relation to primary and secondary effects of pesticides. Understanding nutrient -plankton and plankton -plankton interrelationships on both spatial and temporal scales is important if secondary or indirect effects are to be assessed. Before defining or measuring a toxicity endpoint, consideration must be given to whether to use single species or multispecies tests. Each has its strengths and weaknesses and is reviewed. In single species testing, toxicity endpoints can be more clearly defined but extrapolation of effects to an ecosystem is more difficult than with multispecies testing and can often lead to incorrect conclusions. Interpretation of multispecies testing results are challenging and numerical analysis techniques including methods whose objectives are inference, classification and ordination are required. Conceptual and fuzzy logic modelling techniques promise a solution to the interpretation of multispecies tests.
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