State of the art: Ecological biomarkers

摘要

It is especially difficult to demonstrate the effect of environmental pollution at the Ecosystem level, where populations and communities are studied. Although pollution can produces stress at the Ecosystem level, the response observed is latent and so far removed from the initial event of exposure that causality is almost impossible to establish. Risk assessment to date has relied on models that use toxicity data and physical properties of chemicals. This approach has been ineffective at the Ecosystem level because of the complexity of pollutants in the environment and the variability in susceptibility of the numerous species present. The use of biological responses (biomarkers) in organisms present in a polluted environment is an approach that may resolve some of the problems outlined. Chemicals are known to elicit measurable and characteristic biological responses in exposed organisms. Such evidence can provide a link between exposure and effect. Unfortunately, this area of endeavor has received little attention until recently. It has only been within the past several years that authoritative texts have become available to document the application of this promising approach.