Ecotoxicology

Ecotoxicology is the study of the effects of toxic chemicals on biological organisms, especially at the population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecotoxicology is a multidisciplinary field, which integrates toxicology and ecology.

The ultimate goal of this approach is to be able to predict the effects of pollution so that the most efficient and effective action to prevent or remediate any detrimental effect can be identified. In those ecosystems that are already impacted by pollution ecotoxicological studies can inform as to the best course of action to restore ecosystem services and functions efficiently and effectively.

Ecotoxicology differs from environmental toxicology in that it integrates the effects of stressors across all levels of biological organisation from the molecular to whole communities and ecosystems, whereas environmental toxicology focuses upon effects at the level of the individual and below.

The publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson's seminal volume, Silent Spring catalysed the separation of environmental toxicology - and, subsequently, ecotoxicology - from classical toxicology. The revolutionary element in Carson's work was her extrapolation from single-organism effects to effects at the whole ecosystem and the "balance of nature"

The term "ecotoxicology" was coined by René Truhaut in 1969 who defined it as "the branch of toxicology concerned with the study of toxic effects, caused by natural or synthetic pollutants, to the constituents of ecosystems, animal (including human), vegetable and microbial, in an integral context”

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