An overview of the BEEP Stavanger workshop.

Within the three-year European Research Project BEEP (Biological Effects of Environmental Pollution in marine ecosystems), a workshop was carried out at the facility of Akvamiljø a.s. with the scientific support of IRIS (International Research Institute of Stavanger) researchers. Validation of newly developed biomarkers, especially at the molecular level, was the core part of the activity. Two large scale mesocosm exposures were done and samples shared between the participants (about 30 Institute), allowing an integrated approach for studying the effects of several pollutants selected as environmentally important issues (i.e. PAHs, alkyl phenols, bisphenol A, diallyl phthalate and polybrominated diphenyl ether). In addition, a field study (Visne, Norway) has been performed for the validations of biomarkers under environmental conditions. The Stavanger workshop demonstrates the importance of collaboration between researchers to establish common ways to proceed in biomarker analysis. The common exposures encourage a joint strategy for planning biomonitoring activity. A clarification in this direction is needed to coordinate results from numerous studies about the environmental impact of pollutants which are currently carried out all over Europe and around the world. Expertise in various disciplines is required to plan and perform a successful monitoring activity and to study/predict the effect of environmental pollutants. Biologists, chemists, statisticians and environmental researchers should always be included. The Stavanger workshop also indicated the importance of developing multivariate statistical methods to enable interpretation of complex data sets. It is of interest to develop statistical tools which can integrate the results from a battery of biomarkers in order to obtain a more complete picture of environmental impact.