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Toxicity testing with communities: microcosms, mesocosms, and whole-system manipulations
J Cairns1, J R Bidwell, M E Arnegard
1Department of Biology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg 24061, USA.
Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology
|January 1, 1996
Summary
Current ecotoxicology methods are insufficient for ensuring ecosystem health and sustainable resource use. New approaches are needed to assess ecological integrity and the long-term impacts of materials re-entering natural systems.
Area of Science:
- Ecotoxicology
- Environmental Science
- Ecosystem Health
Background:
- Current ecotoxicological methodologies fall short in providing adequate evidence for critical decisions regarding sustainable planetary use, ecosystem service maintenance, and overall ecosystem health.
- While progress has been made in assessing ecosystem health, significant uncertainties remain regarding the capacity of healthy ecosystems to support future generations, considering human population growth and affluence.
- Distinguishing natural ecosystem dynamics from detrimental trends is a key challenge, as is evaluating the successful reincorporation of materials into natural systems without compromising ecological integrity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To highlight the inadequacy of present ecotoxicological methods for sustainability and ecosystem health assessments.
- To propose the necessity for developing new criteria, standards, endpoints, and methodologies focused on sustainability, ecosystem services, and material re-incorporation.
- To emphasize the need for broader temporal and spatial scales and increased data diversity in ecotoxicological assessments.
Main Methods:
- Critically evaluating existing ecotoxicological testing limitations.
- Identifying the need for novel approaches to assess ecosystem health and sustainability.
- Analyzing the challenges posed by ecosystem variability and the limitations of uniform standards.
Main Results:
- Existing toxicity tests are insufficient for determining the successful reincorporation of materials into ecosystems or for assessing ecological integrity.
- The dynamic nature of ecosystems and the variability across different environmental conditions necessitate a move away from uniform standards.
- There is a high level of uncertainty regarding the long-term adequacy of ecosystem services for future generations.
Conclusions:
- Ecotoxicology requires a paradigm shift towards new methodologies that address sustainability, ecosystem services, and material re-incorporation.
- Site-specific professional judgment and adaptive management are crucial, rather than prescriptive legislation, due to ecosystem heterogeneity.
- Future ecotoxicological research must expand temporal and spatial scales and integrate diverse data sources to improve professional judgment and inform policy.