Survey of Biological Effects of Toxicants upon Puget Sound Biota. 4. Interrelationships of Infauna, Sediment Bioassay and Sediment Chemistry Data

摘要

The report is the last in a series that describes some of the toxicological conditions of Puget Sound sediments. The first three reports described the results of surveys in which the toxicity of sediment samples was tested in laboratory bioassays. The study reported here was initiated to examine more thoroughly (qualitatively) the interrelationships of the geographic trends in resident infauna, sediment bioassay and sediment chemistry data sets. A goal of the study was to determine if the three data types could comprise a 'triad' of observations usable in a sediment quality index. A second goal was to determine values for the Index of Benthic Degradation based upon the benthic infaunal data.