Fundamentals of ecotoxicology the science of pollution

… It is a ‘must have’ text on the shelves of students and practitioners of ecotoxicology.” —Don Mackay, Trent University, Ontario, Canada An integrated analysis exploring current and r

FOURTH EDITION

“This is the ideal A comprehensive and up-to-date book on how chemicals affect

organisms and ecosystems By including 30 vignettes, the author has succeeded

in bringing independent state-of-the-science perspectives from a variety of

experts … It is a ‘must have’ text on the shelves of students and practitioners of

ecotoxicology.”

—Don Mackay, Trent University, Ontario, Canada

An integrated analysis exploring current and relevant concepts, Fundamentals of

Ecotoxicology: The Science of Pollution, Fourth Edition extends the dialogue

further from the previous editions and beyond conventional ecosystems It explores

landscape, regional, and biospheric topics, communicating core concepts with

subjects ranging from molecular to global issues It addresses the increasing growth

and complexity of ecotoxicological problems, contains additional vignettes, and

employs input from a variety of experts in the field

Divided into 14 chapters, the book begins with an overall history of the field

It details the essential features of the key contaminants of concern today,

including their sources It examines bioaccumulation, the effects of contaminants

at increasing levels of ecological organization, and the regulatory aspects of

the field addressing the technical issues of risk assessment The author includes

appendices illustrating important environmental laws and regulations and

compiles key terms not already identified by section headings in the glossary He

also provides suggested readings at the end of each chapter and presents study

questions at the end of the book

Fundamentals of Ecotoxicology: The Science of Pollution, Fourth Edition

contains a broad overview of ecotoxicology, and provides a basic understanding

of the field Designed as a textbook for use in introductory graduate or

upper-level undergraduate courses in ecotoxicology, applied ecology, environmental

pollution, and environmental science, it can also be used as a general reference

for practicing environmental toxicologists

Tai Lieu Chat Luong

FUNDAMENTALS OF ECOTOXICOLOGY

The Science of Pollution

F O U R T H E D I T I O N

Michael C Newman

FUNDAMENTALS OF ECOTOXICOLOGY

The Science of Pollution

F O U R T H E D I T I O N

Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

© 2015 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

No claim to original U.S Government works

Version Date: 20140320

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-4665-8232-3 (eBook - PDF)

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I pretend not to teach, but to inquire …

Locke (1690)

List of Vignettes xiii

Preface xv

Acknowledgments xix

Author xxi

Guest Authors xxiii

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

1.1 Historic Need for Ecotoxicology 1

1.2 Current Need for Ecotoxicology Expertise 6

1.3 Ecotoxicology 22

1.4 Ecotoxicology: A Synthetic Science 23

1.4.1 Introduction 23

1.4.2 Science, Technology, and Practice 25

1.4.2.1 Scientific Goal 26

1.4.2.2 Technological Goal 28

1.4.2.3 Practical Goal 29

1.5 Summary 30

Suggested Readings 31

Chapter 2 Major Classes of Contaminants 33

2.1 Introduction 33

2.2 Major Classes of Contaminants 34

2.2.1 Inorganic Contaminants 34

2.2.1.1 Metals and Metalloids 35

2.2.1.2 Organometallic Compounds 39

2.2.1.3 Inorganic Gases 40

2.2.1.4 Anionic Contaminants Including Nutrients 40

2.2.2 Organic Contaminants 43

2.2.2.1 Hydrochlorofluorocarbons and Chlorofluorocarbons 43

2.2.2.2 Organochlorine Alkenes 44

2.2.2.3 Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons 45

2.2.2.4 Polyhalogenated Benzenes, Phenols, and Biphenyls 46

2.2.2.5 Polychlorinated Naphthalenes 47

2.2.2.6 Polychlorinated Dibenzodioxins and Dibenzofurans 48

2.2.2.7 Pesticides 48

2.2.2.8 Herbicides 70

2.2.2.9 Oxygen-Demanding Compounds 71

2.2.2.10 Other Important Compounds 71

2.2.2.11 Additional Emerging Organic Contaminants of Concern 79

2.2.3 Radiations 83

2.2.3.1 Expressing Radioactivity 85

2.2.3.2 Radionuclides 86

2.2.3.3 Ultraviolet Radiation 88

2.2.3.4 Infrared Radiation 89

2.2.4 Genetic Contaminants 89

2.2.5 Nanomaterials 90

2.2.6 Thermal Pollution 92

2.3 Summary 94

2.4 Background Chemistry Concepts and Definitions 94

Suggested Readings 98

Chapter 3 Uptake, Biotransformation, Detoxification, Elimination, and Accumulation 99

3.1 Introduction 99

3.2 Uptake 101

3.2.1 Introduction 101

3.2.2 Reaction Order 104

3.3 Biotransformation and Detoxification 105

3.3.1 General 105

3.3.2 Metals and Metalloids 105

3.3.3 Organic Compounds 108

3.4 Elimination 109

3.4.1 Elimination Mechanisms 109

3.4.2 Modeling Elimination 112

3.5 Accumulation 117

3.6 Summary 126

Suggested Readings 126

Chapter 4 Factors Influencing Bioaccumulation 129

4.1 Introduction 129

4.1.1 General 129

4.1.2 Bioavailability 130

4.2 Chemical Qualities Influencing Bioavailability 133

4.2.1 Inorganic Contaminants 133

4.2.1.1 Bioavailability from Water 133

4.2.2 Bioavailability from Solid Phases 138

4.2.3 Organic Contaminants 146

4.2.3.1 Bioavailability from Water 146

4.2.3.2 Bioavailability from Solid Phases 149

4.3 Biological Qualities Influencing Bioaccumulation 150

4.3.1 Temperature-Influenced Processes 150

4.3.2 Allometry 151

4.3.3 Other Factors 154

4.4 Summary 155

Suggested Readings 155

Chapter 5 Bioaccumulation from Food and Trophic Transfer 157

5.1 Introduction 157

5.2 Quantifying Bioaccumulation from Food 165

5.2.1 Assimilation from Food 165

5.2.2 Trophic Transfer 166

5.2.2.1 Defining Trophic Position 166

5.2.2.2 Estimating Trophic Transfer 169

5.3 Inorganic Contaminants 172

5.3.1 Metals and Metalloids 172

5.3.2 Radionuclides 176

5.4 Organic Compounds 177

5.5 Summary 179

Suggested Readings 180

Chapter 6 Molecular Effects and Biomarkers 181

6.1 Introduction 181

6.2 Organic Compound Detoxification 182

6.2.1 Phase I Transformations 183

6.2.2 Phase II Transformations 192

6.3 Metallothioneins 193

6.4 Stress Proteins 200

6.5 Oxidative Stress and Antioxidant Response 201

6.6 DNA Modification 204

6.7 Enzyme Dysfunction and Substrate Pool Shifts 206

6.8 Summary 208

Suggested Readings 208

Chapter 7 Cells, Tissues, and Organs 209

7.1 Introduction 209

7.2 General Cytotoxicity and Histopathology 210

7.2.1 Necrosis and Apoptosis 211

7.2.2 Inflammation 214

7.2.3 Other General Effects 215

7.3 Gene and Chromosome Damage 217

7.4 Cancer 222

7.5 Gills as an Example 225

7.6 Liver as an Example 226

7.7 Summary 233

Suggested Readings 234

Chapter 8 Sublethal Effects to Individuals 235

8.1 General 235

8.2 Selyean Stress 236

8.3 Growth 237

8.4 Development 243

8.4.1 Developmental Toxicity and Teratology 243

8.4.2 Sexual Characteristics 246

8.4.3 Developmental Stability 252

8.5 Reproduction 259

8.6 Physiology 260

8.7 Immunology 263

8.8 Behavior 263

8.9 Detecting Sublethal Effects 267

8.9.1 Conventional Approach 267

8.9.2 Fundamental Issue to Resolve 271

8.10 Summary 273

Suggested Readings 274

Chapter 9 Acute and Chronic Lethal Effects to Individuals 275

9.1 General 275

9.1.1 Overview 275

9.1.2 Acute, Chronic, and Life Stage Lethality 275

9.1.3 Test Types 276

9.2 Dose–Response 279

9.2.1 Basis for Dose–Response Models 279

9.2.2 Fitting Data to Dose–Response Models 281

9.2.3 Incipiency 286

9.2.4 Mixture Models 286

9.3 Survival Time 292

9.3.1 Basis for Time–Response Models 292

9.3.2 Fitting Survival Time Data 293

9.3.3 Incipiency 296

9.3.4 Mixture Models 296

9.4 Factors Influencing Lethality 297

9.4.1 Biotic Qualities 297

9.4.2 Abiotic Qualities 298

9.5 Summary 304

Suggested Readings 304

Chapter 10 Effects on Populations 305

10.1 Overview 305

10.2 Epidemiology 306

10.3 Population Dynamics and Demography 310

10.3.1 Overview 310

10.3.2 General Population Response 311

10.3.3 Demographic Change 313

10.3.4 Energy Allocation by Individuals in Populations 318

10.4 Metapopulations 324

10.5 Population Genetics 333

10.5.1 Change in Genetic Qualities 336

10.5.2 Acquisition of Tolerance 337

10.5.3 Measuring and Interpreting Genetic Change 340

10.5 Summary 342

Suggested Readings 342

Chapter 11

Effects to Communities and Ecosystems 343

11.1 Overview 343

11.1.1 Definitions and Qualifications 343

11.1.2 Context 344

11.1.3 General Assessment of Effect 346

11.2 Interactions Involving Two or a Few Species 348

11.2.1 Predation and Grazing 348

11.2.2 Competition 351

11.3 Community Qualities 352

11.3.1 General 352

11.3.2 Structure 358

11.3.2.1 Community Indices 358

11.3.2.2 Approaches to Measuring Community Structure 366

11.3.3 Function 370

11.4 Ecosystem Qualities 371

11.5 Summary 374

Suggested Readings 375

Chapter 12 Landscape to Global Effects 377

12.1 General 377

12.2 Landscapes and Regions 384

12.3 Continents and Hemispheres 386

12.4 Biosphere 393

12.4.1 General 393

12.4.2 Global Movement of Persistent Organic Pollutants 394

12.4.3 Global Warming 395

12.5 Summary 396

Suggested Readings 396

Chapter 13 Risk Assessment of Contaminants 397

13.1 Overview 397

13.1.1 Real and Perceived Risk 397

13.1.2 Logic of Risk Assessment 397

13.1.3 Expressions of Risk 401

13.1.4 Risk Assessment 402

13.2 Human Risk Assessment 403

13.2.1 General 403

13.2.2 Hazard Identification (Data Collection and Data Evaluation) 404

13.2.3 Exposure Assessment 405

13.2.4 Dose–Response Assessment 405

13.2.5 Risk Characterization 407

13.2.6 Summary 408

13.3 Ecological Risk Assessment 409

13.3.1 General 409

13.3.2 Problem Formulation 410

13.3.3 Analysis 412

13.3.3.1 Exposure Characterization 413

13.3.3.2 Ecological Effects Characterization 413

13.3.4 Risk Characterization 413

13.3.5 Summary 414

13.4 Radiation Risk Assessment 414

13.4.1 Characteristics of Types of Radiations and Their Effects 414

13.4.2 Expressing Radiation Dose and Effect 414

13.4.3 Models of Radiation Effect 417

13.5 Conclusion 423

Suggested Readings 423

Chapter 14 Conclusions 425

14.1 Overview 425

14.2 Practical Importance of Ecotoxicology 425

14.3 Scientific Importance of Ecotoxicology 426

Appendix 1: International System (SI) of Units Prefixes 429

Appendix 2: Miscellaneous Conversion Factors 431

Appendix 3: Summary of U.S Laws and Regulations 433

Appendix 4: Summary of European Union Laws and Regulations 441

Mark Crane and Albania Grosso Appendix 5: Summary of Modern Environmental Laws and Regulations of China 447

Taiping Wang Appendix 6: Regulation and Management of Chemicals in Australia: A 2013 Update 451

Michael StJ Warne Appendix 7: Summary of Indian Environmental Laws and Regulations 457

S Bijoy Nandan Appendix 8: Regulation and Management of Hazardous Chemical Substances in South Africa 463

Theunis Meyer and Claudine Roos Appendix 9: Derivation of Units for Simple Bioaccumulation Models 471

Appendix 10: Equations for the Estimation of Exposure 473

Study Questions 475

Glossary 501

References 549

Vignette 3.1 Fugacity and Bioaccumulation 119Jon A Arnot and Donald Mackay

Vignette 4.1 Metal Speciation: A Continuum 134Peter G C.Campbell and Landis Hare

Vignette 4.2 Bioavailability of Metals to Aquatic Biota 140Philip S Rainbow and Samuel N Luoma

Vignette 5.1 Birds as Monitors of Mercury Pollution 160Robert W Furness

Vignette 5.2 Models of Mercury Trophic Transfer Using Nitrogen Isotopes 173Kyle R Tom and Michael C Newman

Vignette 6.1 Cytochrome P-450 Monooxygenases and Their Regulation 186Mark E Hahn

Vignette 6.2 Metallothioneins 195Guritno Roesijadi

Vignette 7.1 Chromosome Damage 219Karen McBee

Vignette 7.2 Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Liver Cancer in Fish 230Wolfgang K Vogelbein

Vignette 8.1 Dose Response: Comparing Hormesis with the Threshold and Linear

No-Threshold Models 238Edward J Calabrese

Vignette 8.2 Use of Neogastropods as an Indicator of Tributyltin

Contamination along the South China Coast 248

Ma Shan Cheung, Helen Y M Leung, and Kenneth M Y Leung

Vignette 8.3 Developmental Instability and Fluctuating Asymmetry 253Dmitry L Lajus

Vignette 8.4 The Role of Behavior in Ecotoxicology 265Mark Sandheinrich

Vignette 9.1 Photo-induced Toxicity of Polycyclic Aromatic

Hydrocarbons in Aquatic Systems 299James T Oris

Vignette 10.1 Effects of Contaminant on Population Dynamics 319Valery E Forbes and Peter Calow

Vignette 10.2 Action at a Distance: The Impacts of Chemicals on the

Dynamics of Spatially Explicit Populations 326Wayne G Landis

Vignette 10.3 Industrial Melanism: Genetic Adaptation to Pollution 333Bruce Grant

Vignette 11.1 Ecological Resilience as a Measure of Recovery in Aquatic Communities 353William H Clements

Vignette 11.2 Biological Integrity and Ecological Health 362James R Karr

Vignette 13.1 Why Risk Assessment? 399Glenn W Suter, II

Vignette 13.2 Radiation and Ecological Risk 417Eric L Peters

TENOR OF THIS BOOK

Nothing is new under the sun Even the thing of which we say,

“See, this is new!” has already existed in the ages that preceded us.

Ecclesiastes 1: 10–11

In contrast to the conceptual doldrums expressed above by Coheleth, we live in exciting times, rich in new discoveries and novel applications of familiar concepts: tremendous opportunity exists for intellectual growth And there is now tremendous need by society for such growth This is so obvious in fields such as molecular genetics and computer sciences that no elaboration is required Advances in our understanding of the natural world come immediately to mind and range through-out the fields of planetary biogeochemistry, mathematics, and geology Debates about Lovelock’s

Gaia hypothesis* (Lovelock, 1988; Margulis and Lovelock, 1989) have stretched our perspective beyond the ecosystem to consider contaminants in a global context Recently, we learned that a

global distillation moves volatile and persistent pesticides from warmer areas of use to cooler

areas of the globe where they had been banned for decades or never used (Simonich and Hites, 1995) The imminent consequences of global warming have become an increasingly common topic in deliberations by decision makers from all countries of the planet (Kerr, 2007)—with some embarrassing political laggards Indeed, Al Gore received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for focusing the world’s collective attention on what he describes as a planetary emergency (Gore, 1992, 2006) Lovelock’s (2003) observation about the scientific community’s long-last acceptance of Gaia theory

at a 2001 Amsterdam conference, “Then the ice began to melt,” also reflects the present worldwide glacier meltdown and the unprecedented recent thinning of Arctic ice as a result of ignoring the Gaian context in environmental decision making The global warming and future global scale crises require a Gaian framework for decision making

Only a few decades ago, nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory laid out the limits of ism We now know that it is impossible to predict precisely the behavior of all but the simplest of systems A more inclusive vantage emerged that allows us to better understand and make appropri-ate predictions while dealing with contaminants in our world As an example involving individual organisms, the bioaccumulation models presented in Chapter 3 do not necessarily predict pollutant accumulation until a single equilibrium concentration is reached In sharp contrast to current think-ing, oscillations in body concentrations are expected under certain conditions (Newman and Jagoe, 1996) In some cases, similar oscillations are expected for many populations, including nontarget and target populations sprayed to pesticides (Newman and Clements, 2008; Newman, 2013) At an even higher level of ecological organization, new insights create anticipation that ecotoxicological tipping points are as plausible as gradual changes (Cairns, 2004; Scheffer et al., 2012) This includes responses to global warming, ocean acidification, and declining biodiversity To accommodate complex temporal dynamics at different scales, new branches of ecology and associated techniques have emerged such as metacommunity (Wilson, 1992; Leibold et al., 2004), landscape (Foreman and Godron, 1986), and even planetary (Rambler et al., 1989) ecology New techniques for making decisions and predictions about complex ecological systems have emerged and have been applied successfully to important issues (Boyd, 2012; Mougi and Kondoh, 2012) Similarly, the vantage

determin-of physical scientists has broadened to encompass global biogeochemistry (Butcher et al., 1992), atmospheric sciences (Bridgman, 1994; Lovelock, 2003), and observation systems (Butler, 2005).Just a few decades ago, French scientists discovered that life’s activities had so modified the

* The earth’s albedo, temperature, and surface chemistry are homostatically regulated by the biota.

brought together to reach critical mass (Lovelock, 1988, 1991) By creating the prerequisite tions, Proterozoic life influenced the hydrological cycle and produced an oxidizing atmosphere

condi-The consequence was algal biomineralization (biologically mediated deposition of minerals) of

enough uranium to begin sustainable nuclear fission (Lovelock, 1988; Milodowski et al., 1990) and

create Gabon’s natural Oklo reactors These natural fission reactors generated power for nearly

a million years (Choppin and Rydberg, 1980), leaving clear evidence that life’s activities had nuclear manifestations long before humans appeared on earth The present distribution of residue from these natural reactors also provides environmental scientists with valuable clues about the long-term fate and migration of modern waste fission products Such understanding becomes increasingly important as the transition begins from overdependence on petroleum-based energy sources to a mixture of energy sources, including nuclear fission

My reasons for writing this book stem from the realization that new concepts and novel applications of existing ideas appear every day This book is my effort to expose you to new and useful concepts of ecotoxicology Not only are these concepts and facts fascinating in themselves, but they also provide us with the tools to avoid or solve environmental problems As discussed in Chapter 1, our ecotoxicological problems become increasingly complex and encompass broader spatial and temporal scales with each passing year Our practical understanding must evolve accordingly to maintain an acceptable quality of life

… alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear It is never too late to give

up our prejudices No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without

proof What everyone echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be a

falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion…

Thoreau (1854)

CONTENT AND ORGANIZATION OF THIS BOOK

This book is designed as a textbook for use in an introductory graduate or upper level uate course, or as a general reference It creates a basic understanding of the field that can be

undergrad-expanded further with Ecotoxicology: A Comprehensive Treatment (Newman and Clements, 2008), which was written to support a more advanced or intensive course A third book, Quantitative

Ecotoxicology (2013) also extends issues discussed in Fundamentals of Ecotoxicology, but frames

them in a quantitative context

The Fundamentals of Ecotoxicology provides a broad overview of ecotoxicology that ranges

from molecular to global issues Reflecting our present imbalance of knowledge and effort, this book does retain some bias toward lower levels of ecological organization, e.g., biochemical to organismal topics Yet, it purposefully extends discussion further in each edition beyond the con-ventional ecosystem to include landscape, regional, and biospheric topics The intent of this exten-sion is to impart a perspective as encompassing as the problems facing us today: many of our most serious problems transcend the conventional ecosystem context It follows that discussion of

of the individual, human or otherwise The time has passed when it was sufficient for the cologist to focus only on new human toxicants as they appear and then explore how they impact nonhuman species An agent that eliminates an essential pollinator of a particular plant species (e.g., Devine and Furlong, 2007; Pettis and Deplane, 2010; Potts et al., 2010; Watanabe, 2008) will have

ecotoxi-as harmful an impact on the plant species’ persistence ecotoxi-as another agent that poisons the individual

* The classic toxicants or poisons are only a subset of agents that can harm or dissemble valued ecological entities For example, a “nontoxic” agent can do harm by modifying key habitats, intra- or interspecies interactions, metapopulation

or metacommunity dynamics, material cycling, or energy flow.

plants outright An agent that modifies an organism’s physical habitat, such as greenhouse gases, can have an adverse effect on that species To omit discussion of some ecotoxicants for reasons of convention results in inadequate discussion of agents harmful to valued ecological entities.

We disagree with any suggestion that discussion include only conventional mammalian

poisons in the environment that could do harm to other biota Any ecotoxicant even

nitrogen or CO 2 , is relevant if present in sufficient amounts to perturb ecological entities.

Newman and Clements (2008)

Both human and ecological health issues are frequently interwoven here The reason for this

pres-ent approach to assessing hazards and risks from pollutants Also, many mechanisms of action and bioaccumulation, and effect dynamics are common to all species It is unreasonable to omit discussion of some particularly insightful materials simply because they were developed first for the human species As examples, valuable insights are possible from human health studies that describe important biochemical mechanisms or useful epidemiological techniques This is consistent with Newman and Clements (2008), who stated their rationale in this regards,

A more congruent treatment was also attempted [in Ecotoxicology A Comprehensive

Treatment] by including relevant human effects information rather than taking the

contrived approach of “asking humans to step out of the picture” when discussing

human influences on the biosphere.

Before leaving this topic, one final reason can be given for discussing human health topics

ecological effects of contaminants are made with motives as profoundly anthropocentric as those involving human health Why not discuss them together?

Topics are divided among 14 chapters Vignettes written by expert guest authors are placed

chapter provides general history and perspective for the field Chapter 2 details the essential features

of the key contaminants of concern today, including their sources Bioaccumulation and effects of contaminants are detailed at increasing levels of ecological organization in Chapters 3 through 12 The framework of these chapters is scientific, not regulatory Regulatory aspects of the field are covered partially in Chapter 13, which addresses the technical issues of risk assessment Although characterized by common themes, environmental laws and regulations vary with political setting and history so that it would be challenging to develop a chapter that does justice to all relevant laws Instead, appendices illustrating important sets of laws and regulations are provided at the end of this book Experts in each set of laws and regulations contributed discussions of key Australian, Chinese, Indian, South African, United States, and European Union legislation It is hoped that

* Even a traditionalist argument exists for including humans in ecotoxicological discussions The first coining of the term

ecotoxicology (Truhaut, 1977) specifically included effects to humans.

† Decisions about ecological effects are often perceived as arising from selfless protection of the earth In fact, our motives are based on the value we give to the heretofore free services provided by ecological systems These services include generation of clean water and air, production of food, provision of biological materials for medical and genetic uses, and provision of pleasing settings for living and recreation Decisions are based on the perceived value of these services rela- tive to those of our technological services and goods The delusion of selfless motivation in environmental stewardship

and advocacy is sufficiently widespread as to be named the Lorax Incongruity (Lorax is a character in the popular

children’s book by Dr Seuss [Geisel and Geisel, 1971] who “speaks for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.”) This well-intended, but intransigence-inducing, delusion is pervasive in society today.

‡ An instructor may wish to present the core materials in each chapter themselves and then assign vignettes for student-led discussions.

more such appendices will be added in future editions of this textbook To provide a capstone for the textbook, the final chapter briefly summarizes and provides context for the volume.

There was a troublesome bias toward North American examples in past editions of this book This reflected the author’s limited background, not a quiet snub of non-North American interests Recognizing this shortcoming, extra attention was paid with each new edition to gather information more broadly The vignettes and appendices by a diverse team of guest authors contrib-ute considerably to this end

Except in their occasional introductions, science textbooks do not describe the sorts

of problems that the profession may be asked to solve … Rather, these books exhibit

concrete problem solutions that the profession has come to accept as paradigms …

[however, students] must, we say, learn to recognize and evaluate problems to which no

unequivocal solution has been given ….

Kuhn (1977)

Although most textbooks teach established science facts without much coverage of existing troversies, the youthfulness of ecotoxicology as a science (and the author’s predilection) mandated that controversies be integrated into the chapters This might annoy some instructors and puzzle some students; however, as expressed in the above quote, description of any science—especially a new one—as a static body of facts gives a false impression to students that little room remains for exploring novel themes To safeguard against the author’s mere opinion becoming confused with

con-controversy, the term incongruity is used throughout the book to identify opinionative—perhaps

even curmudgeonly—insights of the author that are not generally shared by most ecotoxicologists, e.g., the Lorax incongruity discussed earlier The reader may decide to ignore most of them with no danger of becoming an uninformed ecotoxicologist

To aid the reader, key terms not already identified by section headings are highlighted in the text and compiled in the glossary Some important materials have been included in the footnotes so that the reader is asked not to unintentionally overlook these materials Suggested readings are provided

at the end of each chapter, and study questions are collected at the end of the book Answers to the study questions are available for instructors from the publisher

My sincerest thanks to the A Marshall Acuff, Jr Professorship of Marine Science for the support provided during the preparation of this edition I am also very grateful to all vignette and appen-dix guest authors for their intelligent and thorough contributions to this book These contributions greatly enrich the book and are much appreciated Chapters written in previous editions by Thomas Hinton (first edition, Chapter 14) and Michael A Unger (second edition, Chapter 2) contributed significantly to the reorganization and revisions of Chapters 2 and 13 The contributions of Dr Eric Peters to numerous paragraphs discussing radionuclides became more ghostwriting than reviewing

in places

Michael C Newman is currently the A Marshall Acuff, Jr Professor of Marine Science at the

College of William & Mary, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, where he also served as the dean

of graduate studies for the School of Marine Sciences from 1999 to 2002 Previously, he was a ulty member at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory His research inter-ests include quantitative ecotoxicology, environmental statistics, risk assessment, population effects

fac-of contaminants, metal chemistry and effects, and bioaccumulation and biomagnification modeling

In addition to roughly 145 articles, he authored five books and edited another six on these topics

The English editions, and Mandarin and Turkish translations, of Fundamentals of Ecotoxicology

have been adopted widely for introductory ecotoxicology courses He taught full semester or short courses at universities throughout the world including the College of William & Mary, University

of California—San Diego, University of Georgia, University of South Carolina, Jagiellonian University (Poland), University of Antwerp (Belgium), University of Hong Kong, University of Joensuu (Finland), University of Koblenz—Landau (Germany), University of Technology—Sydney (Australia), Royal Holloway University of London (United Kingdom), Central China Normal University, and Xiamen University (China) He served many international, national, and regional organizations including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the U.S EPA Science Advisory Board, the Hong Kong Areas of Excellence committee, and the U.S National Academy of Science National Research Council In 2004, the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry awarded him its Founder’s Award, “the highest SETAC award, given to a person with an outstanding career who has made a clearly identifiable contribution in the environmental sciences.”

Jon A Arnot

University of Toronto Scarborough

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

School of Public Health and Health Sciences

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Department of Ecology and Biodiversity

The University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong, China

William H Clements

Department of Fish, Wildlife and

Conservation Biology

Colorado State University

Fort Collins, Colorado

Virya Bravo Durán

Institute for Central American Studies on Toxic Substances

Universidad NacionalHeredia, Costa Rica

Valery E Forbes

School of Biological SciencesUniversity of Nebraska–LincolnLincoln, Nebraska

Bruce Grant

Biology DepartmentCollege of William & MaryWilliamsburg, Virginia

Albania Grosso

AG-HERA ConsultingOxfordshire, United Kingdom

Mark E Hahn

Biology DepartmentWoods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionWoods Hole, Massachusetts

Landis Hare

INRS–Eau Terre Environnement Research Centre

Université du QuébecQuébec City, Québec, Canada

Department of Ecology and Biodiversity

The University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong, China

Kenneth M Y Leung

Department of Ecology and Biodiversity

The University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong, China

Samuel N Luoma

Department of Zoology

Natural History Museum

London, United Kingdom

Guritno Roesijadi

Marine Sciences LaboratoryPacific Northwest National LaboratorySequim, Washington

Mark Sandheinrich

Department of BiologyUniversity of Wisconsin–La Crosse

Kyle R Tom

School of Marine Science

College of William & Mary

Gloucester Point, Virginia

Wolfgang K Vogelbein

Virginia Institute of Marine Science

College of William & Mary

Gloucester Point, Virginia

Taiping Wang

Marine Sciences Laboratory

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Sequim, Washington

Michael StJ Warne

Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the ArtsUniversity of Queensland

Brisbane, Australia

Introduction

On the day of the patients’ victory at court, someone wrote a headline: “The Day that Tomoko Smiled.” She couldn’t possibly have known Tomoko Uemura, born in 1956, was attacked by mercury in the womb of her outwardly healthy mother No one knows if she is aware of her surroundings or not.

Smith and Smith (1975)

1.1 HISTORIC NEED FOR ECOTOXICOLOGY

It is natural and responsible to periodically reconsider the wisdom of our evermore complex and encompassing system of environmental regulations Do United Nations treaties and European Union directives encroach too much on the sovereignty of nations? Have environmental regulations grown too costly for developed countries or too stifling for developing countries? It may be dif-ficult at first glance to understand why national sovereignty should not be more respected or why significant amounts of the money now spent on environmental regulation should not be reallocated

to the global economic crisis, critical social problems, medical research, technological innovation, education, reinvigorating space exploration, or other worthwhile endeavors, e.g., Lomborg (2001) But, just 50 years ago, it was easy to understand: Tomoko Uemura’s mother understood

Tomoko Uemura was born with severe and permanent neurological damage after her mother had unknowingly consumed mercury-laden fish Tomoko was barely aware of her surroundings dur-ing her pain-filled 21 years of life Although Tomoko’s mother grew to understand the consequences

of inattention to pollution, what she could not grasp as her personal tragedy unfolded was how the conditions leading to her daughter’s agonizing life were allowed to come into existence in the first place

Explanation of Tomoko’s, and related, tragedies must begin with events that emerged a little more than half a century before she was born At the close of the nineteenth century, complex changes were occurring unevenly across many countries All grew out of the unprecedented shifts

in human population size and distribution, and our singular talent for extracting resources and energy from the environment This was a time of shortsighted exploitation of natural resources and cavalier attitudes toward worker health Population expansion brought widespread land and soil degradation through farming, foresting, mining, smelting, and other activities With expansion

to fill all available frontier regions such as in the western United States, the option was no longer open to move to an unsullied area after despoiling local natural resources Widespread degradation left the development of a sound knowledge base and practices for resource conservation as the only available alternative

Perhaps soil degradation and eventual conservation is the clearest and most global illustration

of this point McNeill (2000) points out that two of the three historical surges in soil erosion lapped with this period The first did not, having occurred in the Middle East, India, and China circa 2000 bc–ad 1000 The second surge (1490s–1930s) did, starting with the European expansion into North America, South America, South Africa, Northern Africa, Australia, and New Zealand The third, and ongoing, surge encompassed most of the world beginning in the 1950s In addition

over-to soil erosion, mining during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries produced wide swaths of metal-contaminated soils in broad regions such as the Akita Prefecture of Japan, Silesia region of Poland, Ontario Province of Canada, and western United States, typically tainting local agricultural produce and waters

Out of necessity, natural resource conservation encompassing land, water, wildlife, and eries resources became essential in developing countries Typical of legislation that started to emerge during this period, the United States passed its first wildlife conservation act, the Lacey Act (1900) Society’s ultimate embrace of a conservation ethic was clearly articulated in the 1905 revelation of U.S President Theodore Roosevelt’s head of the new Department of Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot:

fish-Suddenly the idea flashed through my head that there was a unity in this complication – that the tion of one resource to another is not the end of the story.… All of [the] separate questions fitted into and made up the one great problem of the use of the earth for the good of man.

rela-Pinchot (1947)

And another general movement materialized to cope with harm occurring to humans exposed

to chemicals Global, albeit uneven, trends in urbanization and industrialization brought with them harmful chemical consequences to human well-being that required redress

People were gathering together in cities of a size never seen before in history In addition to the infectious disease risks that emerged as large cities came into existence, urban air pollution–associated health risks appeared, becoming one of the first blatant pollution problems needing attention As the twentieth century unfolded, coal burning was pervasive for industrial and domes-tic heating purposes An archetypal consequence was the December 1952 London “fog” episode that killed 4000 Londoners outright (Anderson, 2009) Although this was an extreme case, appall-ing air pollution was being experienced in other cities including those in Europe (e.g., Athens, the Ruhr region of Germany, and numerous cities in Soviet-dominated countries), North America (e.g., Chicago, Mexico City, Pittsburgh, and St Louis), and Asia (e.g., Calcutta) Large cities improved air quality temporarily by switching from coal to oil; however, the appearance of automobiles brought unhealthy air pollution back in the form of photochemical smog (McNeill, 2000)

Industries contributed substantially to city air pollution Indeed, the term acid rain was first coined in 1872 by Angus Smith who identified it as the cause of extensive vegetation death around industrialized Newcastle and Liverpool (Markham, 1995) A 1930 air pollution episode precipi-tated by a brief inversion over an industrialized Belgian town in Meuse Valley increased death rates 10-fold and the sickened citizens with histories of respiratory illness (Anderson, 2009) This scenario played out yet again in Donora, Pennsylvania, when an October 1948 inversion held zinc smelter smoke close to the ground, increasing death rates by sixfold and sickening hundreds of resi-dents In Siberia, lung cancer rates of forced-labor residents skyrocketed when the Norilsk nickel mines and smelters came into existence in 1935 in support of Soviet industrial plans (McNeill, 2000)

Some of the first pieces of environmental pollution legislation (such as, the U.K Clean Air lation of 1956 and 1963) aimed at controlling health effects of air pollution in and around large cities and industries In many cases, a local problem was resolved temporarily by building taller smoke stacks that spread pollutants over wider areas They became a problem for another day

legis-On related fronts, labor rights and industrial hygiene movement leaders fought for a more

was Alice Hamilton who founded the science of occupational health Her career as an advocate, beginning circa 1910, included negotiation to control U.S workplace poisons such as mercury (hat-ter industry), phosphorous (match manufacture), benzene (general industrial solvent), and radium (watch face painting) (Hamilton, 1985) She successfully added chemical agents to the list of work-place dangers needing resolution As the industrial hygiene movement matured into the 1930s, employers, employee representatives, scientists, and government officials came together to resolve early industrial indiscretions and to assure future adherence to the principles of evenhanded cor-poratism This coalescing of responsible and affected parties would eventually be adopted by those attempting later to cope with pollutants in the general environment An expectation of a safe work environment was eventually established As a final contributing social movement, awareness and political action emerged about harmful chemicals in foodstuffs and drugs That movement estab-lished the expectation of safe foods and medicines, and in 1906, resulted in the creation of a new U.S Food and Drug Administration

To summarize, concepts, approaches, and institutions appeared during the first half of the tieth century for addressing pressing problems of natural resource conservation, urban air quality, industrial workplace hygiene, and harmful chemicals in food and drugs The associated social evo-lution established an approach and ethic that would next extend outward to address harmful chemi-cals in the general environment Environmental pollutants became a serious social issue to resolve during the second half of the twentieth century

twen-Blended into these historical demographic and industrial trends midway through the century

was the Green Revolution, which began in the 1940s and quickly spread throughout the world

(Evenson and Gollin, 2003) The key goal of this revolution was to improve crop production through

an integrated application of high-yield crop strains, chemical fertilizers, and chemical biocides It too brought unique resource conservation, worker safety, food safety, and general pollution issues

as the second half of the century began

So an explanation can now be provided to Tomoko’s mother about conditions that allowed her daughter’s life to be so painful and brief Tomoko was born just as society moved beyond the pale in its activities within natural systems that it depended on Society was becoming aware of its mistakes and realizing that it had new responsibilities to carefully regulate toxicants in the general environment

changed Change in our environmental ethic had not come soon enough for many such as Tomoko

One of the newest fads in Washington – and elsewhere – is “environmental science.” The term has political potency even if its meaning is vague and questionable Lacking specific definition, it embraces every science – physical, natural, social – for all of them deal with man’s surroundings and their influ- ence and impact upon him.

Klopsteg (1966)

* Corporatism is “the belief that all parts of society [are] necessary to its harmonious functioning, and that therefore all parts should cooperate to see to the welfare of each part.” (Clark, 1997)

† In the United States, these movements were embedded in what has been called the Progressive Era that occurred

between the late 1890s until the United States’ entry into the World War I in 1917 Occurring during the shift from agrarian to a more urban and industrialized state, the goal of Progressive Era was to transform democracy into a more just political system by replacing customs and dubious beliefs—self-evident intuitions—with modern ones, including innovations based on sound scientific reasoning and technology A scientific lens was systematically focused on social and political issues such as those concerning race, women’s voting rights, reasonable limits of capitalism, labor rights, and immigration.

‡ This objective explanation is likely very unsatisfactory to anyone who, if only for a moment, imagines themselves in place

of Tomoko or her mother For the interested reader, a subjective narrative for the Minamata poisonings is provided in one

of the best photojournalism works to date, Minamata (Smith and Smith, 1975) The Smiths’ book and Carson’s Silent

Spring, were major catalysts for what would become a global movement to control environmental pollutants.

The vastness of the earth has fostered a tradition of unconcern about the release of toxic wastes Billowing clouds of smoke are diluted to apparent nothingness; discarded chemicals are flushed away

in rivers; insecticides “disappear” after they have done their job; even the massive quantities of active debris of nuclear explosions are diluted in the apparent infinite volume of the environment … [But] we have learned in recent years that dilution of persistent pollutants even to trace levels detect- able only by refined techniques is no guarantee of safety Nature is always concentrating substances that are frequently surprising and occasionally disastrous.

including Tomoko Uemura, fell victim to Minamata Disease before Chisso Corporation halted

mercury discharge into Minamata Bay In a major mining region of Japan (Toyama Prefecture), citizens were slowly being poisoned from 1940 to 1960 by cadmium in their rice This outbreak

of what became known as itai-itai disease was linked to irrigation water contaminated with

In 1945, open-air testing of nuclear weapons began at Alamogordo, New Mexico, and nuclear bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki later that same year Nine years later, the Project Bravo bomb exploded at Bikini Atoll, dropping fallout over thousands of square kilometers of

ocean including several islands and the ironically named fishing vessel, Lucky Dragon (Woodwell,

1967) The Marshall Islands of Ailinginae, Rongelap, and Rongerik received radiation levels of

Hempelmann (1968) would report elevated prevalence of nodular thyroids in Marshallese children

1954 detonation radiation

Fallout radioactivity in the air here increased sharply yesterday to 17.4 measured units, almost twice Sunday’s 8.25 micromicrocuries per cubic meter of air A micromicrocurie is one millionth of a mil- lionth of the radiation strength of a gram of radium.

Washington Post (1961)

On a broader scale, the hemispheric dispersal and unexpected accumulation of fission ucts in foodstuffs from these and subsequent detonations eventually created concern about possible long-term health effects Initially, fallout had elicited only brief comment such as the

prod-snippet above taken from the December 12, 1961 weather page of the Washington Post But concern grew quickly as the public read more thoughtful articles such as the 1963 Washington

site have been exposed during the last dozen years to far more radiation from radioactive iodine

* The name, itai-itai, which literally means “ouch-ouch,” reflects the extreme joint pain associated with the disease Doctors gave the disease this moniker based on the exclamations of patients as they came into clinics and hospitals for help.

† A rem or Roentgen equivalent man is a measure of radiation that takes into account the differences in biological effects

of various types of radiation It relates the radiation dose received to its potential biological damage As such, it is a convenient unit for defining allowable radiation exposures, e.g., the average person receives approximately 0.360 rem (360 mrem) of radiation annually The rem has been replaced as the official unit by the sievert (Sv) (1 rem = 0.01 Sv.)

In contrast, the curie used later is a straightforward measure of radioactivity One curie is 2.2 × 106 disintegrations per minute (dpm) Although still used widely as in this book, the curie has been replaced as the official unit of radioactivity

by the becquerel (Bq) One curie is 3.7 × 1010 Bq.

than hereto realized” (Simons, 1963).* From 1960 to 1965, human body burdens of 137Cesium increased rapidly worldwide and then slowly decreased as the United States, former Soviet Union, France, United Kingdom, and China bowed to public pressure to cease open-air testing (Shukla

et al 1973)

Unreported discharge of radionuclides occurred in addition to these overt releases Most were kept from the general public for reasons of national security On the northwest coast of England, a

con-taminate local vegetation, be ingested by dairy cattle, and accumulate in thyroids of dairy product consumers At the secret Soviet Chelyabinsk 40 military plant in the Urals, plutonium processing had furtively discharged 120 million curies to a nearby lake and enough to the Techa River to induce radiation poisoning in citizens living downriver (Medvedev, 1995) A 1957 storage tank explosion at this same facility released 18 million curies of radioactive material, forcing approximately 11,000

knowledge of releases from the U.S Atomic Energy Commission’s Hanford Site in Washington

atmo-sphere between 1944 and 1947 (Stenehjem, 1990) An estimated 20,000 curies were released to the Columbia River on May 12, 1963, from the Hanford K-East reactor (Stenehjem, 1990)

Concern about pollutant effects to nonhuman species was also growing Recollect from our discussion of trends during the first half of the century that a natural resource conservation ethic had come into being and institutions were established to ensure adherence to basic conservation

1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-di-(4-chlorophenyl)-ethane) began accumulating in wildlife to alarming centrations, resulting in direct toxicity and sublethal effects The indisputable success of DDT in combating insect vectors of human disease such as malaria, yellow fever, and encephalitis, had encouraged its broadened use to control agricultural and nondisease-related pests Responsible gov-ernment agencies—the U.S Department of Agriculture and Public Health Service, for instance—had found little evidence for concern in the early 1940s as DDT use spread and intensified However, U.S Department of Interior did express concern by the mid-1940s about widespread DDT applica-tion and possible harm to wildlife (Nelson and Surber, 1946) Then, in 1954, Professor Wallace at Michigan State University noticed dead and dying robins after DDT spraying on campus to control Dutch elm disease (Carson, 1962) Hunt and Bischoff (1960) and Dolphin (1959) documented from

con-1957 to 1960 the overt death of Western grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis) after lation of the DDT-related pesticide, DDD (1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis[p-chlorophenyl] ethane) through a

bioaccumu-freshwater food web (Clear Lake, California) Following excessive DDD application to this lake, enough accumulated in the grebes’ brains to cause axonic dysfunction and death Dolphin (1959)

described a 1949 administration of DDD to control the nonbiting gnat, Chaoborus astictopus, of

from drum-laden barges”! In 1962, Rachel Carson brought these and many other events together in

a remarkably well-crafted and factually accurate exposé, Silent Spring.

*The basis for this newspaper article was a 1962 Science article by Lapp who examined the risk of infant thyroid cancer

as a consequence of open-air testing Estimates were done for the area surrounding the Nevada test site and also for a distant location in Troy, New York, that received considerable fallout (circa 2–4 μCi· 131 I sq mi –1 ) on April 26, 1953, from

a Nevada detonation.

† DDT was an extremely important tool for disease control throughout the world Indeed, Paul Müeller was awarded the

1948 Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering its value as an insecticide Its importance in the context of disease vector control is often overshadowed by our present understanding of its adverse effects on nontarget species if used indiscrimi- nately Indeed, UN Environmental Programme delegates at the May 17, 2004 Stockholm Convention on POPs conceded that a complete DDT ban was unreasonable in malarial regions of the world The World Health Organization now pre- scribes careful reintroduction of DDT for malaria control in developing countries (Lubick, 2007b).

The men who make pesticides are crying foul “Crass commercialism,” scoffs one industrial gist “We’re aghast,” says another “Our members are raising hell,” reports a trade association.… Statements are being drafted and counter-attacks plotted.

toxicolo-Lee (1962)

Notwithstanding attacks upon the work of this “quiet women author” (Lee, 1962), Rachel Carson succeeded in drawing the public’s attention to the consequences of pesticide accumula-tion in wildlife (Souder, 2012) Although relatively nontoxic to humans, it had become clear

that DDT and DDE (dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene or

1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis-(p-chlorophenyl)-ethylene) inhibited Ca-dependent ATPases in the shell gland of birds, resulting in shell thinning and increased risk of breakage of eggs after being laid (Cooke, 1973, 1979) Birds at higher trophic levels were particularly vulnerable because DDT and DDE were resistant to degradation and accumulated in tissue lipids The result was an increase in concentration with each trophic exchange in a food web Reproductive failure of raptors and fish-eating birds became widespread

For instance, the average number of offspring per pair of osprey (Pandion haliaetus) nesting on

Long Island Sound dropped from 1.71 young/nest (1938–1942) to only 0.07–0.40 young/nest by

simi-larly in Alaska (Cade et al 1971) and other regions of North America (Hickey and Anderson,

1968) Reproduction of brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) on the South Carolina coast from

1969 to 1972 fell below that needed to maintain viable populations (Hall, 1987) Ratcliffe (1967,

1970) reported the same downward trends for falcons (Falco peregrinus) and other raptors in the

1.2 CURRENT NEED FOR ECOTOXICOLOGY EXPERTISE

Today, we are hearing and seeing dire warnings of the worst potential catastrophe in the history of human civilization: a global climate crisis.…

Everyone would like to feel that the problems just described reflect early mistakes in our global

population size and technological ingenuity have created a world containing harmful pollutants that can no longer be diluted to harmless levels: the existence of real risk from pollutants now requires due diligence Techno-industrial progress and environmental legislation proceed unevenly within and among countries, creating ample opportunity for repetition of past mistakes And novel problems continue to emerge despite our increased diligence and complex regulations It would be

*This premise is sufficiently prevalent to warrant a label, the Bad Old Days Incongruity The assumption is often made

that the worst environmental issues are now past and present issues are being handled adequately with existing tion and technology This assumption does not stand up to evidence such as that described herein The adverse impacts

legisla-of present and emerging issues are as serious—arguably much more serious in many instances—than those legisla-of the past Increased attention and sophistication in dealing with these issues is required as the world’s population increases and our techno-economic systems become more complex and far reaching.

Parathion

Diazinon Malathion

pyriphos

Chlor-Chlorethoxyphos

Alanycarb

Pirimicarb Aldicarb Carbofuran Carbaryl

Allethrin Resmethrin

valerate Deta- methrin Permethrin

Esfen- cyhalothrin

Lambda-Dinotefuran Thiamethoxam Clothianidin Acetamiprid Nitenpyram Thiacloprid Imidacloprid

Carbamate Pyrethroid Neonicotinoid

Figure 1.1 the general development chronology of the five major types of organic insecticides the

informa-tion in this figure was derived from Casida and Quistad (1998) (figure 1), Jeschke and nauen (2008), and Jeschke et al (2011) the neonicotinoids are plotted with patent year, i.e., imidaclopid (1985), thiaclopid (1985), nitenpyram (1988), acetamiprid (1989), thiamethoxam (1992), and dinote- furan (1994).

absurd to argue that, because early problems have been solved, attention and resources can now

the present millennium, problems extended more and more frequently to transnational and global

scales (Figure 1.3) Many now are imbedded in laggard systems (Kerr, 2007), that is, systems with

adverse effects that only slowly approach a critical state after conditions become established for their emergence Adverse consequences of our present problems are equivalent to, or often more serious than, those of historic problems although they may manifest more subtly This makes wise decisions difficult to reach for the public and mandates an increasingly more subtle and granular understanding of ecotoxicological phenomena It also requires a level of international cooperation that is unfamiliar, and intermittently discomforting, for citizens of many countries Effective attention must be given to a wide range of contaminants

Nuclear materials still require our attention and resources The core of Three Mile Island Reactor Unit 2 (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) melted on March 28, 1979, releasing 3 Ci of radiation (Booth, 1987) In 1986, nearly 30 years after the Chelyabinsk 40 explosion in the Urals, the Chernobyl Reactor 4 core melted down in the Ukraine, creating the largest radioactive release in history (301  million curies as estimated by Medvedev [1995]) Fallout from Chernobyl spread rapidly

element) mining and processing operations near the Estonian coastal city of Sillamäe remains and continues to release high levels of radon gas decades after Estonia won back its independence from the Soviet Union (Raukas, 2004) Three reactors in the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility melted down on March 11, 2011 (Dauer et al 2011), releasing enough radioactive material

to eventually kill a projected 130 humans via fatal cancers (Ten Hoeve and Jacobson, 2012) The International Atomic Energy Agency (2007) estimates that the world’s output of nuclear power will double by 2030 as countries’ fossil fuel–dominated energy strategies shift to encompass more options Increased presence of nuclear power stations in our landscape seems inevitable

* Even a careful reading of Lomborg’s book from which the above, superficially contrary quote was taken reveals that his appraisal embraces a central theme of increased thoughtfulness in balancing the benefits and adverse consequences of our activities, that is, “… it is absolutely vital for us to be able to prioritize our efforts in many different fields, e.g., health, education, infrastructure and defense, as well as the environment” (Lomborg, 2001).

Sublethal effects, birth defects, and death

Phytoplankton Zooplankton Carnivorous fish

CH3HgX

C 2 H 5 HgX

DDT DDD DDE

Reproductive failure and death

Figure 1.2 two of the first pollutants to draw attention to the inadequacies of the dilution paradigm were ddt

and methylmercury they accelerated the emergence of the boomerang paradigm Both cals were returned to humans or to valued wildlife species by transfer through food webs.

chemi-Chemical wastes require continued attention and funding A myriad of environmental issues remain in affiliated countries after the collapse in 1991 of the Soviet Union (Tolmazin, 1983; Edwards, 1994) Wastes from Soviet-era metal mining and smelting activities in Poland remain extensive and only partially remediated (Figure 1.4) Tributyltin (TBT), an antifouling agent in

Sewage pollution

0.000005% (solid trend lines) or

0.000016% (dashed trend lines)

0.000200% (solid trend lines) or

0.000005% (dashed trend line)

Pesticide pollution

Green revolution

Chemical age

Population explosion Industrial revolution

M ercur

y p ollution

Acid precip itation

Ozone hol e

Glo bal warm ing

PCB pollution DDT pollution

Figure 1.3 results of an nGram analysis of several bigrams relevant to ecotoxicology the top panel is the

prevalence of bigrams related to social trends that were found in the millions of english books scanned to date by Google (see ngrams.googlelabs.com) the vertical axis reflects the occur- rence of the bigram as a proportion of all of the bigrams in these books the bottom panel depicts the same for bigrams related to impacts of environmental pollution Clearly, a sequence of events occurring in the twentieth century established an awareness of a sequence of pollution types an important theme to note is the expending scale for each in the temporal sequence of pollution types for example, sewage pollution was usually associated with a water body the more recent pollution types, e.g., the ozone hole or global warming, encompass scales of a continent and the

entire biosphere (modified from figure 8.1 in newman, m C., Quantitative Ecotoxicology, 2nd

edition, taylor & francis/CrC Press, Boca raton, fl, 2013.)

marine paints, has decimated coastal mollusk populations throughout the world (Bryan and Gibbs, 1991; Leung et  al 2006) yet has only recently been effectively regulated through international agreement Mercury in fish and game remains a concern as new sources appear such as mercury used in South American gold mining (e.g., de Lacerda et al 1989; Branches, 1993; Reuther, 1994; Alho and Vieira, 1997; Malm, 1998; Wade, 2013) (Figure 1.5) Subsurface agricultural drainage

in the San Joaquin Valley of California brought selenium in the Kesterson Reservoir and Volta Wildlife Area to concentrations causing avian reproductive failure (Ohlendorf et al 1986) Such high selenium concentrations from irrigation and other sources remain a global issue (Lemly, 2004) Efforts to avoid harm to humans (Ember, 1980; Settle and Patterson, 1980; Millar and Cooney, 1982) and wildlife by reducing lead in products such as gasoline and lead shot have been effective only since the late 1970s Even well into the 1980s, debate continued about lead’s effects and the

mined here since the medieval ages; however, industrial activities surged through the 1960s and 1970s in a manner typical of the times similar, widespread metal contamination was pro- duced around the avonmouth (uK), Gusum (north sweden), Copperhill (tennessee), and flin flon (Canada) smelters in the early 1980s, releases at the Polish mining region decreased as production demand abated, and modern electrofilters and scrubbers were installed (top panel) (see Łagisz et al [2002], stone et al [2001, 2002], and nikli ńska et al [2006] for details about ecotoxicological consequences.)

need for federal regulation (Anderson, 1978; Marshall, 1982; Anonymous, 1984a; Ember, 1984;

in abnormally high blood lead levels in workers (Were et al 2012) In late 2007, concern about lead emerged again as high concentrations were measured in toys manufactured by China: China’s booming economy overran its capacity to maintain adequate quality control on these imports.There is little reason to suspect that pollution events such as those that emerged in Europe, North America, and Asia during the 1970s and 1980s will not continue to emerge The need remains for vigi-lance and accurate assessment of associated risk As an infamous instance of confused risk communica-tion, the controversy about the Hooker Chemicals and Plastics Corporation’s waste dump sites at Hyde Park and Love Canal became hysterical as the public waited for a clear statement of risk from authorities and scientists (Culliton, 1980; Anonymous, 1981, 1982; Smith, 1982) Similar instances involving high perceived risk and uncertainty will inevitably appear in the future, requiring accurate estimation and communication of real risk As an example that no one wishes to risk repeating, poor risk estimation and communication resulted in the December 2, 1984, explosion of a storage tank at a Union Carbide pesti-cide plant (Bhopal, India) and release of a methyl isocyanate cloud that killed 2,000 people and harmed another estimated 200,000 (Anonymous, 1984b; Heylin, 1985; Lepkowski, 1985) The impact on human life from this overnight catastrophe far exceeded that of the 1956 Minamata poisonings

The intense activities associated with petroleum production, transport, and consumption also require our close attention Recent examples to support this statement are easily found On

March  16, 1978, the Amoco Cadiz supertanker ran aground at Portsall (France) and released

* Relative to our slow acceptance of lead’s adverse effect, Tackett (1987) provides a revealing quote by Benjamin Franklin (July 31, 1786) “This my dear Friend is all I can at present recollect on the Subject You will see by it, that the Opinion

of this mischievous Effort from lead is at least above Sixty Years; and you will observe with Concern how long a useful Truth may be known and exist, before it is generally receiv’d and practis’d on.” Indeed, Michaels (2008) describes acute lead toxicity in hundreds of workers only a few decades ago that was related to lead-based gasoline additive production

As recently as one decade ago—200 years after this quote was made, the value of reducing lead in gasoline was being actively questioned.

Figure 1.5 mercury being used to extract gold from ore mined in Portovelo, ecuador (June 2007) Pulverized

ore is agitated with a puddle of mercury (arrows) to form a gold–mercury amalgam, which in this picture, is being placed into a piece of cloth mercury is hand-squeezed from the amalgam and remaining mercury is driven off by heating with a propane torch this process results in substantial human exposure and mercury release into the environment (note that the person wringing the mercury from the amalgam has a silver bracelet into which the mercury will also readily dissolve to form a silver–mercury amalgam.) (Courtesy of lane, K., College of William & mary.)

roughly  209,000  m3 of crude oil (Ellis, 1989) On March 24, 1989, March 24, 1989, the Exxon

Valdez spilled 41,340 m3 of crude oil into Prince William Sound The oil covered an estimated

are still recovering from this spill (Lance et al 2001) From August 2, 1990 until February 26, 1991, the largest oil release to have ever occurred at that time was deliberately spilled by Iraqi troops

Mina Al-Ahmadi oil terminal were pumped into the Arabian Gulf (Sorkhoh et al 1992) Plumes of contaminating smoke from the intentional ignition of Kuwaiti oil wells by the Iraqi troops were vis-ible from space (Figure 1.6) Beginning on April 20, 2010, and lasting for 84 days (Atlas and Hazen,

2011), the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blowout released between four and five million barrels

and easily displacing the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill as the largest oil spill in U.S history (Camill et al

that would exclude these kinds of releases happening at the current frequency into the near future.Other smaller or more diffuse, but incrementally as damaging, events also require expertise in

of oil annually from smaller leaks and spills (Sorkhoh et al 1992) Before the Exxon Valdez spill

pipeline by an intoxicated man The average number of oil spills and volume per spill in or around

* It also exceeded the June 1979 Mexican IXTOC 1 well oil spill that lasted 9 months and released three and a half million barrels (556,430 m 3 ) into the southern Gulf of Mexico (Kerr et al 2010).

Figure 1.6 Kuwaiti oil wells set afire by iraqi troops as seen from a u.s space shuttle flight oil wells are seen

burning north of the Bay of Kuwait and immediately south of Kuwait City (Courtesy of nasa.)