Advancing Soil Risk Assessment: A Novel Earthworm Cocoon Test with a Complementary Toxicokinetic-Toxicodynamic Modeling Approach.

In the current European Union pesticide risk assessment for soil organisms, effect endpoints from laboratory studies (Tier 1) and field studies (higher-tier risk assessment) are compared with predicted environmental concentrations in soil, derived from the proposed use pattern. The simple but conservative initial Tier 1 risk assessment considers a range of worst-case assumptions. In contrast, the higher-tier assessment focuses on specific conditions tested in the corresponding field study.

The Effect of Dietary Exposure to Coal Ash Contaminants within Food Ration on Growth and Reproduction in Daphnia magna.

Coal ash contains numerous contaminants and is the focus of regulatory actions and risk assessments due to environmental spills. We exposed Daphnia magna to a gradient of coal ash contamination under high and low food rations to assess the sublethal effects of dietary exposures. Whereas exposure to contaminants resulted in significant reductions in growth and reproduction in daphnids, low, environmentally relevant food rations had a much greater effect on these endpoints.