Development and application of the SSD approach in scientific case studies for ecological risk assessment

Abstract

Species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) are used in ecological risk assessment for extrapolation of the results of toxicity tests with single species to a toxicity threshold considered protective of ecosystem structure and functioning. The attention to and importance of the SSD approach has increased in scientific and regulatory communities since the 1990s. Discussion and criticism have been triggered on the concept of the approach as well as its technical aspects (e.g., distribution type, number of toxicity endpoints). Various questions remain unanswered, especially with regard to different endpoints, statistical methods, and protectiveness of threshold levels, for example. In the present literature review (covering the period 2002-2013), case studies are explored in which the SSD approach was applied, as well as how endpoint types, species choice, and data availability affect SSDs. How statistical methods may be used to construct reliable SSDs and whether the lower 5th percentile hazard concentrations (HC5s) from a generic SSD can be protective for a specific local community are also investigated. It is shown that estimated protective concentrations were determined by taxonomic groups rather than the statistical method used to construct the distribution. Based on comparisons between semifield and laboratory-based SSDs, the output from a laboratory SSD was protective of semifield communities in the majority of studies. Environ Toxicol Chem 2016;35:2149-2161. # 2016 SETAC

Life‐cycle studies with 2 marine species and bisphenol A: The mysid shrimp (Americamysis bahia) and sheepshead minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus)

“…Similarly, no significant differences in marine and freshwater HC5 values were observed in a comparison of 10 insecticides . Del Signore et al , in a critical review of SSDs and their uses for ecological risk assessment, concluded that there were no systematic or consistent differences in sensitivity between freshwater and marine taxa.…”

Sensitivity of native and alien freshwater bivalve species in Europe to climate‐related environmental factors

“…The minimum number of species for deriving an SSD was eight, which was in accordance to the minimum sample size required for chemicals by the US Environmental Protection Agency and by the European Union (Del Signore et al. ). Data for SSDs were checked for normal distribution using the shapiro.test function in R (R Core team ).…”

“…Deriving species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) is a common method to quantify the risks of chemical stressors to biodiversity (Del Signore et al. ). These statistical distributions describe variation in species sensitivity related to a particular environmental factor (Posthuma et al.…”

“…Therefore, it is of utmost importance to quantify the effects of climate-related environmental factors on freshwater bivalve species (Santos et al 2015). Deriving species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) is a common method to quantify the risks of chemical stressors to biodiversity (Del Signore et al 2016a). These statistical distributions describe variation in species sensitivity related to a particular environmental factor (Posthuma et al 2002).…”

Microbial conservation in the Anthropocene

“…The SSD method has been applied as a decision support tool in environmental protection and management since the 1980s, being formally adopted for the derivation of environmental guidelines in 1985 in the United States and 1989 in Europe (Stephan et al, 1985;van Straalen and Denneman, 1989). In the last 30 years, SSDs have been widely applied to develop risk thresholds and guidelines for eukaryotic communities to a variety of different local (e.g., nutrients and petroleum hydrocarbons) and global (e.g., temperature) stressors for compliance and spatial risk assessments (Del Signore et al, 2016).…”