title: Pollutant threshold concentration determination in marine ecosystems using an ecological interaction endpoint.
abstract: The threshold concentrations of pollutants are determined by extrapolating single-species effect data to community-level effects. This assumes the most sensitive endpoint of the life cycle of individuals and the species sensitivity distribution from single-species toxic effect tests, thus, ignoring the ecological interactions. The uncertainties due to this extrapolation can be partially overcome using the equilibrium point of a customized ecosystem. This method incorporates ecological interactions and integrates the effects on growth, survival, and ingestion into a single effect measure, the equilibrium point excursion in the customized ecosystem, in order to describe the toxic effects on plankton. A case study showed that the threshold concentration of copper calculated with the endpoint of the equilibrium point was 10 μg L(-1), which is significantly different from the threshold calculated with a single-species endpoint. The endpoint calculated using this method provides a more relevant measure of the ecological impact than any single individual-level endpoint.
authors.affiliation: School of Marine Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, PR China. Electronic address: chy.w@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Changyou
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Marine Chemistry Theory and Technology, Ministry of Education, Qingdao, 266100, PR China.
authors.forename: Shengkang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.affiliation: School of Marine Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, PR China.
authors.forename: Wenting
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: School of Marine Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, PR China.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: School of Marine Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, PR China.
authors.forename: Wenhui
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Xing
mesh_terms: D003300:Copper / Q000032:analysis / Q000633:toxicity; D017753:Ecosystem; D010933:Plankton / Q000187:drug effects; D012623:Seawater / Q000032:analysis*; D018675:Toxicity Tests; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis* / Q000633:toxicity
chemical_list: D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D003300:Copper
keywords: Ecological relationship; Equilibrium point; Threshold concentrations