In vitro biotransformation of surfactants in fish. Part I: linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (C12-LAS) and alcohol ethoxylate (C13EO8)

Developing regulatory activities (e.g., REACh, [DGEE. 2003. Directorates General Enterprise and Environment. The new EU chemicals legislation REACH. DG Enterprise, Brussels, Belgium. (http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/reach/index_en.htm)]) will require bioaccumulation to be assessed for thousands of chemicals. Further, there is increasing pressure to reduce, refine or replace animal tests. Given this scenario, there is an urgent need to evaluate the feasibility of in vitro systems to supply data useful for bioaccumulation estimation. Subcellular and cellular hepatic systems were tested to determine the biotransformation of two surfactants: C12-2-LAS (2-phenyl dodecane p-sulfonate) and an alcohol ethoxylate C13EO8 (Octaethylene glycol monotridecyl ether). The subcellular systems tested were liver homogenates and microsomes from the common carp (Cyprinus carpio) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Cellular systems consisted of primary hepatocytes from the common carp (Cyprinus carpio) and PLHC-1 cells, hepatocarcinoma cells from the desert topminnow (Poeciliopsis lucida). All in vitro systems were exposed to radiolabeled test compounds and assayed for biotransformation using liquid scintillation and thin layer chromatographic methods. First-order kinetics were used to estimate rates of biotransformation. Bioconcentration of test materials in fish were predicted using an in vitro to in vivo metabolic rate extrapolation model linked to a mass-balance model commonly used to predict bioaccumulation in fish. Subcellular biotransformation rates for each of the surfactants were greatest with microsomes. Cellular loss rates exceeded subcellular rates, leading to lower predicted BCF values. Predicted BCFs corresponded closely to measured values in several fish species, verifying the utility of in vitro systems in refining Kow-only-based BCFs via the inclusion of biotransformation rates.     

Determination of the aquatic PNEC0.05 for boron.

Several weight of the evidence approaches for the effects assessment of boron to aquatic organisms have been conducted. The focal point for all of these assessments is the appropriate interpretation of the LC1 for rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) from W.J. Birge, J.A. Black, Report No. EPA5601176408. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Toxic Substances, Washington, DC, 1977, as the LC1 from their studies provided the lowest chronic toxicity values for boron. Other studies by these investigators (W.J. Birge, J.A. Black, Completion Report prepared for the Procter & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, USA, 1981; W.J. Birge, J.A. Black, A.G. Westermann, T.M. Short, S.B. Taylor, M.C. Parekh. Completion Report prepared for the Procter & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, USA, 1984; J.A. Black, J.B. Barnum, W.J. Birge, Chemosphere 26 (1993) 1383-1413) further indicate this species to be particularly sensitive to boron. While weight of the evidence approaches have been necessary for diverse risk assessment needs, they each suffer from potential bias via professional judgment. In order to allay these issues and to update the effects assessment for boron, a probabilistic approach was used. Raw data from the Birge and Black studies were reanalyzed to generate chronic values representative of the adverse effects threshold (e.g., LC10) for several species. A comprehensive list of chronic data from these studies and other studies were combined into a cumulative probability term, allowing for the determination of the fifth percentile protection value, or PNEC0.05. The PNEC0.05 for boron was determined to be at least 1.3 mg B/l.     

稀有鮈鲫物种敏感性及其在生态毒理学与水质基准中的应用

物种敏感性分析是水质基准及生态毒理学研究的关键环节,稀有鮈鲫（Gobiocypris rarus）作为我国鲤科鱼类的代表性受试鱼种,其对环境污染物的敏感性受到了国内外广泛关注.通过搜集稀有鮈鲫急性毒性数据,使用物种敏感度分布法比较分析稀有鮈鲫对15种典型环境污染物的敏感性,主要包括重金属（Zn2+、Cu2+、Cr6+、Hg2+）、VOCs（三氯乙烯、四氯乙烯、甲苯、邻苯二甲酸二丁酯）、苯胺类有机物（对氯苯胺、3,4-二氯苯胺）、含氯消毒剂（三氯异氰尿酸）和农药类有机物（毒死蜱、丁草胺、乙草胺、三唑酮）,并对稀有鮈鲫在水质基准和生态毒理学研究中作为本土受试生物的适用性进行了讨论.结果表明:稀有鮈鲫对各类环境污染物的敏感性普遍较高（平均累积概率为46%）,尤其对重金属和农药类有机物反应灵敏,其中对农药类有机物最为敏感（平均累积概率为26%）,表明稀有鮈鲫可作为潜在的水质基准研究的受试生物和水质监测指示生物.在鱼类敏感性排序中,鲤科鱼类对各类环境污染物较为敏感,其中小型鲤科鱼类——稀有鮈鲫在鱼类敏感性排序中位置稳定,对大多数污染物的敏感性超过斑马鱼、黑头呆鱼、日本青鳉等国际标准试验鱼种,并且具有本土性、易人工繁育、生物背景清晰等优点,表明稀有鮈鲫是现阶段我国水质基准及生态毒理学研究的潜在本土受试生物.      

Simulating fish production using exponential smoothing

The variation over time of the total annual production of pe and the United Kingdom has been described quantitatively using the exponential smoothing technique. The exercise was repeated on annual mackerel landings for the same two countries. It is suggested that in some cases, the production figure for the current year can be used to simulate the following year's value. The greater variations in South Africa's annual production probably gave rise to the poorer results for these data.     

Dance dialects and foraging range in three Asian honey bee species

Summary We measured the distance dialects in the dance languages of three honey bee species in Thailand (Apis florea, A. cerana, and A. dorsata), and used these dialects to examine the hypothesis that a colony's dialect is adaptively tuned to enhance efficiency of communication over the distances that its foragers typically fly. in contrast to previous interspecific comparisons in Sri Lanka (Lindauer 1956; Punchihewa et al. 1985), we found no striking dialect differences among the Asian bees in Thailand. The adaptive tuning hypothesis predicts that the foraging ranges of the three species should also be similar, but comparisons of colonial foraging range using the forage mapping technique (Visscher and Seeley 1982) actually revealed marked differences. This raises the possibility that the link between ecology and distance code is more subtle than previously supposed, if a link exists at all. Offprint requests to: F.C. Dyer     

The interaction of temperature and sucrose concentration on foraging preferences in bumblebees

Several authors have found that flowers that are warmer than their surrounding environment have an advantage in attracting pollinators. Bumblebees will forage preferentially on warmer flowers, even if equal nutritional reward is available in cooler flowers. This raises the question of whether warmth and sucrose concentration are processed independently by bees, or whether sweetness detectors respond to higher sugar concentration as well as higher temperature. We find that bumblebees can use lower temperature as a cue to higher sucrose reward, showing that bees appear to process the two parameters strictly independently. Moreover, we demonstrate that sucrose concentration takes precedence over warmth, so that when there is a difference in sucrose concentration, bees will typically choose the sweeter feeder, even if the less sweet feeder is several degrees warmer.     

Approach for extrapolating in vitro metabolism data to refine bioconcentration factor estimates

National and international chemical management programs are assessing thousands of chemicals for their persistence, bioaccumulative and environmental toxic properties; however, data for evaluating the bioaccumulation potential for fish are limited. Computer based models that account for the uptake and elimination processes that contribute to bioaccumulation may help to meet the need for reliable estimates. One critical elimination process of chemicals is metabolic transformation. It has been suggested that in vitro metabolic transformation tests using fish liver hepatocytes or S9 fractions can provide rapid and cost-effective measurements of fish metabolic potential, which could be used to refine bioconcentration factor (BCF) computer model estimates. Therefore, recent activity has focused on developing in vitro methods to measure metabolic transformation in cellular and subcellular fish liver fractions. A method to extrapolate in vitro test data to the whole body metabolic transformation rates is presented that could be used to refine BCF computer model estimates. This extrapolation approach is based on concepts used to determine the fate and distribution of drugs within the human body which have successfully supported the development of new pharmaceuticals for years. In addition, this approach has already been applied in physiologically-based toxicokinetic models for fish. The validity of the in vitro to in vivo extrapolation is illustrated using the rate of loss of parent chemical measured in two independent in vitro test systems: (1) subcellular enzymatic test using the trout liver S9 fraction, and (2) primary hepatocytes isolated from the common carp. The test chemicals evaluated have high quality in vivo BCF values and a range of logK(ow) from 3.5 to 6.7. The results show very good agreement between the measured BCF and estimated BCF values when the extrapolated whole body metabolism rates are included, thus suggesting that in vitro biotransformation data could effectively be used to reduce in vivo BCF testing and refine BCF model estimates. However, additional fish physiological data for parameterization and validation for a wider range of chemicals are needed.     

ASsessment Of Alcohol Ethoxylate Surfactants And Fatty Alcohols Mixtures In River Sediments And Prospective Risk Assessment

A feasible and relatively readily available analytical method was adapted for the assessment of alcohol ethoxylates (AE) and fatty alcohols (FA) in sediments. This study illustrates the simultaneous measurement of 38 of 114 possible alcohol ethoxylate ethoxymers (AE) and fatty alcohols (FA) found in commercially important AE products. We predicted toxicity for all identified fractions, as well as the total mixture toxicity, relative to three exposure scenarios via sewage treatment plants (STP) for these widely used chemicals in consumer products and hence generate a preliminary environmental risk screening for AE and FA in sediments. The method is based on derivatization of solvent or solid-phase extracts with 2-fluoro-N-methylpyridinium p-toluenesulfonate (Pyr+). The derivatized extracts were analyzed with liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) operating in the positive ion electrospray mode. The extraction efficiency of AE and FA in three different sediments of varying composition was evaluated with spike-recovery studies, ranging from 64% to 80%. The detection limits for individual ethoxymers typically ranged from 1 to 5ngg⁻¹on a dry weight basis. The mean limit of detection (LOD) was 6ngg⁻¹and the median LOD was 3ngg⁻¹. AE and FA in sediments were found to be stable for two weeks if preserved with 3% (v/v) formalin and stored at 4–6^∘C. Based on equilibrium partitioning, background concentrations of AE and FA were predicted to be below concentrations known to elicit chronically toxic effects. Total worst case mixture toxicities for all AE ethoxymers combined with FA were predicted to result in a risk quotient less than 0.6. Activated sludge treatment (STP) significantly reduced the release of total AE and FA by four-fold, suggesting that the total mixture risk quotient would be < 0.15 for sediment dependent organisms.     

Defining ecologically relevant scales for spatial protection with long‐term data on an endangered seabird and local prey availability

Human activities are important drivers of marine ecosystem functioning. However, separating the synergistic effects of fishing and environmental variability on the prey base of nontarget predators is difficult, often because prey availability estimates on appropriate scales are lacking. Understanding how prey abundance at different spatial scales links to population change can help integrate the needs of nontarget predators into fisheries management by defining ecologically relevant areas for spatial protection. We investigated the local population response (number of breeders) of the Bank Cormorant (Phalacrocorax neglectus), a range‐restricted endangered seabird, to the availability of its prey, the heavily fished west coast rock lobster (Jasus lalandii). Using Bayesian state‐space modeled cormorant counts at 3 colonies, 22 years of fisheries‐independent data on local lobster abundance, and generalized additive modeling, we determined the spatial scale pertinent to these relationships in areas with different lobster availability. Cormorant numbers responded positively to lobster availability in the regions with intermediate and high abundance but not where regime shifts and fishing pressure had depleted lobster stocks. The relationships were strongest when lobsters 20–30 km offshore of the colony were considered, a distance greater than the Bank Cormorant's foraging range when breeding, and may have been influenced by prey availability for nonbreeding birds, prey switching, or prey ecology. Our results highlight the importance of considering the scale of ecological relationships in marine spatial planning and suggest that designing spatial protection around focal species can benefit marine predators across their full life cycle. We propose the precautionary implementation of small‐scale marine protected areas, followed by robust assessment and adaptive‐management, to confirm population‐level benefits for the cormorants, their prey, and the wider ecosystem, without negative impacts on local fisheries.     

Historical Land-Use Influences the Long-Term Stream Turbidity Response to a Wildfire

Wildfires commonly result in an increase in stream turbidity. However, the influence of pre-fire land-use practices on post-fire stream turbidity is not well understood. The Lower Cotter Catchment (LCC) in south-eastern Australia is part of the main water supply catchment for Canberra with land in the catchment historically managed for a mix of conservation (native eucalypt forest) and pine (Pinus radiata) plantation. In January 2003, wildfires burned almost all of the native and pine forests in the LCC. A study was established in 2005 to determine stream post-fire turbidity recovery within the native and pine forest areas of the catchment. Turbidity data loggers were deployed in two creeks within burned native forest and burned pine forest areas to determine turbidity response to fire in these areas. As a part of the study, we also determined changes in bare soil in the native and pine forest areas since the fire. The results suggest that the time, it takes turbidity levels to decrease following wildfire, is dependent upon the preceding land-use. In the LCC, turbidity levels decreased more rapidly in areas previously with native vegetation compared to areas which were previously used for pine forestry. This is likely because of a higher percentage of bare soil areas for a longer period of time in the ex-pine forest estate and instream stores of fine sediment from catchment erosion during post-fire storm events. The results of our study show that the previous land-use may exert considerable control over on-going turbidity levels following a wildfire.