Effects of copper on olfactory, behavioral, and other sublethal responses of saltwater organisms: Are estimated chronic limits using the biotic ligand model protective?

A modelling framework to assess multiple metals impacts on marine food webs: Relevance for assessing the ecological implications of deep-sea mining based on a systematic review

Industrial deep-sea mining will release plumes containing metals that may disperse over long distances; however, there is no general understanding of metal effects on marine ecosystems. Thus, we conducted a systematic review in search of models of metal effects on aquatic biota with the future perspective to support Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) of deep-sea mining. According to results, the use of models to study metal effects is strongly biased towards freshwater species (83% freshwater versus 14% marine); Cu, Hg, Al, Ni, Pb, Cd and Zn are the best-studied metals, and most studies target few species rather than entire food webs. We argue that these limitations restrain ERA on marine ecosystems. To overcome this gap of knowledge, we suggest future research directions and propose a modelling framework to predict the effects of metals on marine food webs, which in our view is relevant for ERA of deep-sea mining.

A biological characteristic extrapolation of compound toxicity for different developmental stage species with toxicokinetic-toxicodynamic model

Intraspecific difference in toxicity brings uncertainty to ecological risk assessment (ERA) and water quality criteria (WQC) of chemicals. Here, we compared intraspecies sensitivity to toxicants for Mesocyclops leuckarti of which toxicity data was obtained from published literatures, and zebrafish Danio rerio of which toxicity data was done in this study). Due to the internal concentration of chemicals not measured, simplified toxicokinetic-toxicodynamic (TK-TD) models were used, and we investigated whether TK-TD parameters estimated by Bayesian method might represent the differences in sensitivity between life-stages of 2 species. The results demonstrated that the difference in TK-TD parameters (background mortality m₀, no effect concentration NEC, the killing rate k_s, and the dominant rate k_d) could represent the toxicity difference between life-stages of individual species. The TK-TD model could predict toxicity in individual species (Cyprinus carpio L., Enchytraeus crypticus, Folsomia candida, Hyalella Azteca) exposed to different chemical concentrations and successfully extrapolate toxicity between different life stages of Mesocyclops leuckarti and Danio rerio by scaling several TK-TD parameters. The modified TK-TD model on the extrapolation toxicity of chemicals between life stages for species could be useful for the ERA and for deriving and revising WQC for chemicals.