INTERACT · Improving EU-risk assessment of toxicants for aquatic communities by considering competition on the population and community level
FP6 — Marie Curie Actions (Human Resources and Mobility)
- Duration
- 2006-03-05 → 2008-03-04
- EU contribution
- €157,063
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- IIF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Final Activity Report Summary - INTERACT (Improving EU-risk assessment of toxicants for aquatic communities by considering competition on the population and community level)
The primary aim of ecotoxicology and environmental risk assessment is to predict and interpret effects of toxic contaminants on complex ecological systems such as populations and communities. Nevertheless, the population and community level predictive tools that were used in ecotoxicological risk assessment so far could mainly not realistically predict toxicant effects on the complex systems, since they had not included population and community regulation mechanisms based on competition and other biological interactions. The overall aim of the INTERACT project was to improve the scientific basis of the risk assessment concerning the parameter competition. To achieve this, investigations of the role of competition were conducted on three levels of ecological complexity: 1. a one-species system of aquatic invertebrates; 2. a two-species system; and 3. a multi-species mesocosm system with a nearly natural aquatic invertebrate community. The major outputs of the INTERACT project included basic ecotoxicological knowledge about the interaction of toxicants and competition. This knowledge on ecological mechanisms underlying toxic effects at population and community levels could be used in both prospective and retrospective risk assessment. The project results suggested that realistic prediction of toxicant effects on populations required consideration of both lethal and sublethal effects within the context of population and community regulation mechanisms based on intraspecific and interspecific competition. Besides, the results indicated possibility to predict indirect effects of toxicants at the population level using information about effects on individuals life-cycle traits and population regulation mechanisms. The findings also forecasted future research needs in the population and community level ecotoxicology, such as investigation of characteristic population and community level effects of toxicants with different physiological modes of action and research works focused on linkage of (sub)organism and above-organism level effects of toxicants.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
At present prospective risk assessment (RA) of toxicants is based on laboratory single-species tests and field test systems used in regulatory testing (91/414/EEC). Retrospective effects of contaminants are assessed by field monitoring (2000/60/EEC). The EU-SETAC workshop EPIF (France, 2004) identified a gap between the results of prospective and retrospective RA: Prospective RA should be improved by integrating environmental parameter. Competition was identified as such a parameter as it is ubiquitous present in natural populations and communities. Hence, there is an urgent need to incorporate this parameter into future RA. Also recent papers of the applicant and studies of other authors indicate the great importance of competition for forecasting chronic effects of toxicants on the community level. However, it remains the question on how to integrate competition in RA. In the light of this situation the aim of the project INTERACT is to improve the scientific basis of risk assessment concerning the parameter competition. To achieve this, investigations of the role of competition will be conducted on three levels of biological organisation: (i) a one-species system of aquatic invertebrates (ii) a two-species system (iii) and a multi-species mesocosm system with a nearly natural aquatic invertebrate community. The expected major outputs of INTERACT will be: (a) basic ecotoxicological knowledge about the interaction of toxicants and competition. On the basis of this mechanistic understanding additional outputs of the project will be (b) support for the interpretation of the above-mentioned regulatory tests and (c) of field monitoring data from retrospective RA according the EU water framework directive. The applicant has a strong interest to conduct his work at the working group Effect propagation at the UFZ as this group is an international accepted in this field and organized the EU EPIF workshop on this topic as mentioned above.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UFZ - UMWELTFORSCHUNGSZENTRUM LEIPZIG - HALLE GMBH · LEIPZIGCoordinatorGermany
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union