Do predictions from Species Sensitivity Distributions match with field data?

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Authors

SMETANOVÁ Soňa BLÁHA Luděk LIESS Matthias SCHAFER Ralf B. BEKETOV Mikhail A.

Year of publication 2014
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Environmental Pollution
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Science

Citation
Web http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749114000876
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2014.03.002
Field Environment influence on health
Keywords Pollution; Risk assessment; Freshwater; Rivers; Statistical modelling
Description Species Sensitivity Distribution (SSD) is a statistical model that can be used to predict effects of contaminants on biological communities, but only few comparisons of this model with field studies have been conducted so far. In the present study we used measured pesticides concentrations from streams in Germany, France, and Finland, and we used SSD to calculate msPAF (multiple substance potentially affected fraction) values based on maximum toxic stress at localities. We compared these SSD-based predictions with the actual effects on stream invertebrates quantified by the SPEAR(pesticides) . The results show that the msPAFs correlated well with the bioindicator, however, the generally accepted SSD threshold msPAF of 0.05 (5% of species are predicted to be affected) severely underestimated the observed effects (msPAF values causing significant effects are 2-1000-times lower). These results demonstrate that validation with field data is required to define the appropriate thresholds for SSD predictions. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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