Freshwater Invertebrate Toxicity Tests

Abstract : The first part of the paper addresses the state of the art of standard freshwater invertebrate toxicity tests for regulatory purposes, with details of the characteristics and the test procedures of the acute and chronic tests with Daphnids (Daphnia magna, Daphnia pulexand Ceriodaphnia dubia). Subsequently this review reports on standard tests used for non-regulatory assays, and in particular the development of cyst-based toxicity tests with their advantages over conventional bioassays based on stock-culturing of the test species.

Finally an overview is given of the numerous toxicity tests developed by individual laboratories with particular invertebrate species. It is concluded that toxicity tests for screening purposes, regulatory requirements and predictive hazard assessment, each have a different set of requirements as to precision, test organism choice, exposure time and costs. Each type of bioassay can have its own merits when properly used in the correct context, but whoever develops new methods must be receptive to the needs of those who actually have to use bioassays to solve real problems.