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Ecological Threshold for Toxicological Concern (eco-TTC): exploring the importance of non-standard species
Citation:
Connors, K., J. Brill, M. Barron, M. Embry, AND S. Belanger. Ecological Threshold for Toxicological Concern (eco-TTC): exploring the importance of non-standard species. SETAC North America 38th Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, November 12 - 16, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
This abstract shows the application of ecological thresholds of concern (TTC) using algal toxicity data. The impact of the work is that this will serve as further demonstration of the application of TTC to ecological risk assessment and chemical management.
Description:
The Threshold for Toxicological Concern (TTC) is well-established for assessing human safety of indirect food-contact substances and has been applied to a variety of endpoints. Recently, we have proposed an extension to the human safety TTC concept for environmental applications, termed the ecological TTC (eco-TTC). The strengths and limitations of an eco-TTC approach are still being investigated. Algal tests are an important component of chemical environmental risk assessments and are the most sensitive taxon approximately 50% of the time. The complete eco-TTC database contains approximately 120,000 toxicological records (tests) employing some 2500 different species. Further, the eco-TTC database contains over 14,000 curated records from 300 unique algal species dominated by standard test species such as the green algal genera Pseudokirchneriella, Scenedesmus, and Desmodesmus, the marine Skeletonema and Phaeodactylum and the blue-green Microcystis and Anabaena. Here, we explore how hazard values for final PNEC derivation may change with the inclusion of standard and non-standard algal test species supported by analyses of eco-TTC and USEPA Web-ICE (Web-based Inter-species Correlation Estimation) applications. An eco-TTC derived hazard value will also be compared against an algal SSD for data rich chemicals such as cadmium chloride, triclosan, and a cationic surfactant. This work was performed with input from the HESI Animal Alternatives in ERA Technical Committee. * Disclaimer: The views, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent views or policies of the US Environmental Protection Agency