title: Old model organisms and new behavioral end-points: Swimming alteration as an ecotoxicological response.
abstract: Behavioral responses of aquatic organisms have received much less attention than developmental or reproductive ones due to the scarce presence of user-friendly tools for their acquisition. The technological development of data acquisition systems for quantifying behavior in the aquatic environment and the increase of studies on the understanding the relationship between the behavior of aquatic organisms and the physiological/ecological activities have generated renewed interest in using behavioral responses also in marine ecotoxicology. Recent reviews on freshwater environment show that behavioral end-points are comparatively fast and sensitive, and warrant further attention as tools for assessing the toxicological effects of environmental contaminants. In this mini-review, we perform a systematic analysis of the most recent works that have used marine invertebrate swimming alteration as behavioral end-point in ecotoxicological studies by assessing the differences between behavioral and acute responses in a wide range of species, in order to compare their sensitivity.
authors.affiliation: National Research Council - Institute of Marine Science (CNR-ISMAR), Via De Marini, 6, 16149 Genova, Italy. Electronic address: marco.faimali@ismar.cnr.it.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Faimali
authors.affiliation: National Research Council - Institute of Marine Science (CNR-ISMAR), Via De Marini, 6, 16149 Genova, Italy.
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gambardella
authors.affiliation: National Research Council - Institute of Marine Science (CNR-ISMAR), Arsenale - Tesa 104, Castello 2737/F, 30122 Venezia, Italy.
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.affiliation: National Research Council - Institute of Marine Science (CNR-ISMAR), Via De Marini, 6, 16149 Genova, Italy.
authors.forename: Veronica
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Piazza
authors.affiliation: National Research Council - Institute of Marine Science (CNR-ISMAR), Via De Marini, 6, 16149 Genova, Italy.
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Morgana
authors.affiliation: National Research Council - Institute of Marine Science (CNR-ISMAR), Arsenale - Tesa 104, Castello 2737/F, 30122 Venezia, Italy.
authors.forename: Noelia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Estévez-Calvar
authors.affiliation: National Research Council - Institute of Marine Science (CNR-ISMAR), Arsenale - Tesa 104, Castello 2737/F, 30122 Venezia, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Garaventa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D059001:Aquatic Organisms / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D054750:Ecotoxicology; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D007448:Invertebrates; D012098:Reproduction; D013550:Swimming; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000633:toxicity*
chemical_list: D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Behavior; Ecotoxicology; End-point; Marine invertebrates; Sub-lethal effects; Swimming; Video-tracking systems