Community Tolerance Comparison As A New and Sensitive Ecotoxicological Tool

The demonstration of an increased tolerance to a pollutant is direct evidence that this pollutant has presented a selection pressure upon a population or community. Recently, pollution-induced community tolerance (PICT) has been applied to the benthic community in a metal-enriched estuary to establish causal linkage between observed changes in community structure and composition and the presence of copper. This paper describes the rationale and methodology behind applying PICT to the marine benthic environment, and shows it to be a sensitive ecotoxicological tool. It also presents a case study, demonstrating how a PICT investigation has aided the interpretation of changes in a benthic community, establishing a causal linkage between these changes in the community and the presence of a specific pollutant.