Abstract |
Toxicity tests must be based on an understanding of the test animal's life cycle. The first section of this report describes the biological information needed to develop toxicity test procedures. The second section describes three categories of toxicity test systems - short-exposure, partial life-cycle, and life-cycle exposures. Each researcher has developed a procedure to solve a particular problem. Therefore, it is impossible to provide specific recommendations for a general toxicity test. In practice, anyone using chironomids should establish a clear experimental objective and then select the test species. The required biological information and test procedure can then be obtained from the literature or developed by experimentation. |