Literature review on the sensitivity and exposure of marine and estuarine organisms to pesticides in comparison to corresponding fresh water species

Can Chemical Toxicity in Saltwater Be Predicted from Toxicity in Freshwater? A Comprehensive Evaluation Using Species Sensitivity Distributions

Species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) play an important role in ecological risk assessment. Estimating SSDs requires toxicity data for many species, but reports on saltwater species are often limited compared to freshwater species. This limitation can constrain informed management of saltwater quality for the protection of marine ecosystems. We investigated the relationships between the parameters (i.e., mean and standard deviation [SD]) of freshwater and saltwater log-normal SSDs to determine how accurately saltwater toxicity could be estimated from freshwater toxicity test data. We estimated freshwater and saltwater SSDs for 104 chemicals with reported acute toxicity data for five or more species and compared their means, SDs, and hazardous concentrations for 5% of the species (HC5) derived from the acute SSDs. Standard major axis regression analyses generally showed that log-log relationships between freshwater and saltwater SSD means, SDs, and HC5 values were nearly 1:1. In addition, the ratios of freshwater-to-saltwater SSD means and HC5 values for most of the 104 chemicals fell within the range 0.1-10. Although such a strong correlation was not observed for SSD SDs (r²  < 0.5), differences between freshwater and saltwater SSD SDs were relatively small. These results indicate that saltwater acute SSDs can be reasonably estimated using freshwater acute SSDs. Because the differences of the means and SDs between freshwater and saltwater SSDs were larger when the number of test species used for SSD estimation was lower (i.e., five to seven species in the present study), obtaining toxicity data for an adequate number of species will be key to better approximation of a saltwater acute SSD from a freshwater acute SSD for a given chemical. Environ Toxicol Chem 2022;41:2021-2027. © 2022 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.

Aquatic community structure in Mediterranean edge-of-field waterbodies as explained by environmental factors and the presence of pesticide mixtures

Studies addressing the predicted effects of pesticides in combination with abiotic and biotic factors on aquatic biota in ditches associated with typical Mediterranean agroecosystems are scarce. The current study aimed to evaluate the predicted effects of pesticides along with environmental factors and biota interactions on macroinvertebrate, zooplankton and phytoplankton community compositions in ditches adjacent to Portuguese maize and tomato crop areas. Data was analysed with the variance partitioning procedure based on redundancy analysis (RDA). The total variance in biological community composition was divided into the variance explained by the multi-substance potentially affected fraction [(msPAF) arthropods and primary producers], environmental factors (water chemistry parameters), biotic interactions, shared variance, and unexplained variance. The total explained variance reached 39.4% and the largest proportion of this explained variance was attributed to msPAF (23.7%). When each group (phytoplankton, zooplankton and macroinvertebrates) was analysed separately, biota interactions and environmental factors explained the largest proportion of variance. Results of this study indicate that besides the presence of pesticide mixtures, environmental factors and biotic interactions also considerably influence field freshwater communities. Subsequently, to increase our understanding of the risk of pesticide mixtures on ecosystem communities in edge-of-field water bodies, variations in environmental and biological factors should also be considered.

Aquatic risk assessment of priority and other river basin specific pesticides in surface waters of Mediterranean river basins

To meet good chemical and ecological status, Member States are required to monitor priority substances and chemicals identified as substances of concern at European Union and local/river-basin/national level, respectively, in surface water bodies, and to report exceedances of the environmental quality standards (EQSs). Therefore, standards have to be set at national level for river basin specific pollutants. Pesticides used in dominant crops of several agricultural areas within the catchment of Mediterranean river basins ('Mondego', 'Sado' and 'Tejo', Portugal) were selected for monitoring, in addition to the pesticides included in priority lists defined in Europe. From the 29 pesticides and metabolites selected for the study, 20 were detected in surface waters of the river basins, seven of which were priority substances: alachlor, atrazine, chlorfenvinphos, chlorpyrifos, endosulfan, simazine and terbutryn, all of which exceeded their respective EQS values. QSs for other specific pollutants were calculated using different extrapolation techniques (i.e. deterministic or probabilistic) largely based on the method described in view of the Water Framework Directive. Non-acceptable aquatic risks were revealed for molinate, oxadiazon, pendimethalin, propanil, terbuthylazine, and the metabolite desethylatrazine. Implications of these findings for the classification of the ecological status of surface water bodies in Portugal and at the European level are discussed.