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A Vision and Strategy:Predictive Ecotoxicology in the 21st Century
Citation:
VILLENEUVE, DAN AND N. GARCIA-REYERO. A Vision and Strategy:Predictive Ecotoxicology in the 21st Century. ENVIRONMENTAL TOXICOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY. Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Pensacola, FL, 30(1):1-8, (2011).
Impact/Purpose:
The manuscript provides an introduction and overview for a series of five papers resulting from a SETAC Pellston Workshop titled A Vision and Strategy for Predictive Ecotoxicology in the 21st Century: Defining Adverse Outcome Pathways Associated with Ecological Risk.
Description:
The manuscript provides an introduction and overview for a series of five papers resulting from a SETAC Pellston Workshop titled A Vision and Strategy for Predictive Ecotoxicology in the 21st Century: Defining Adverse Outcome Pathways Associated with Ecological Risk. It proposes that there are two key scientific barriers to the routine use of ‘alternative’ endpoints (e.g., quantitative structure activity relationships, in vitro bioassays, biomarkers) as a basis for ecological risk assessment. One of these is the lack of established, scientifically-credible linkages between mechanistic sub-organismal endpoints and apical endpoints of demographic significance (e.g., survival, development, reproduction) typically considered in ecological risk assessment, which we propose can be address through the identification and description of “adverse outcome pathways” (AOPs). The second is the lack of appropriate quantitative extrapolation tools/models. In particular, the challenges of extrapolating from effects on individuals to population level impacts, extrapolating across species, and aspects of concentration-response and in vitro to in vivo extrapolation are considered. The paper envisions a strategy for coupling ‘alternative’ data types to appropriate extrapolation models, as informed by AOPs and AOP networks, as a potential emerging, complementary, paradigm in ecological risk assessment. This product furthers on-going efforts at MED to define and develop the concept of adverse outcome pathways and show how they serve as an important organizing framework with potential to inform both research and risk assessment. Additionally, this manuscript and others from the workshop complement on-going efforts within NHEERL to consider research needed to support the use of toxicity pathways, as defined by the National Research Council (NRC) report on Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century (2007), in risk assessment, and to evaluate how the concepts proposed by the NRC may apply to ecological risk assessment.