A review of ecological risk assessment methods for amphibians: Comparative assessment of testing methodologies and available data.

Historically, ecological risk assessments have rarely included amphibian species, focusing preferentially on other aquatic (fish, invertebrates, algae) and terrestrial wildlife (birds and mammal) species. Often this lack of consideration is due to a paucity of toxicity data, significant variation in study design, uncertainty with regard to exposure, or a combination of all three. Productive risk assessments for amphibians are particularly challenging, given variations in complex life history strategies.

An evaluation of cause-effect relationships between polychlorinated biphenyl concentrations and sediment toxicity to benthic invertebrates.

Cause-effect sediment-quality benchmarks for the protection of benthic invertebrates are needed for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to support predictive risk assessments and retrospective evaluations of the causes of observed sediment toxicity. An in-depth evaluation of PCB aquatic toxicity and organic carbon partitioning was conducted to predict sediment effect concentrations using the equilibrium partitioning (EqP) approach. This evaluation was limited to invertebrate toxicity data, because PCBs may exert toxicity to invertebrates and fish via different toxicological mechanisms.