Pollution-induced community tolerance to diagnose hazardous chemicals in multiple contaminated aquatic systems.

Aquatic ecosystems are often contaminated with large numbers of chemicals, which cannot be sufficiently addressed by chemical target analyses. Effect-directed analysis (EDA) enables the identification of toxicants in complex contaminated environmental samples. This study suggests pollution-induced community tolerance (PICT) as a confirmation tool for EDA to identify contaminants which actually impact on local communities. The effects of three phytotoxic compounds local periphyton communities, cultivated at a reference (R-site) and a polluted site (P-site), were assessed to confirm the findings of a former EDA study on sediments. The sensitivities of R- and P-communities to prometryn, tributyltin (TBT) and N-phenyl-2-naphthylamine (PNA) were quantified in short-term toxicity tests and exposure concentrations were determined. Prometryn and PNA concentrations were significantly higher at the P-site, whereas TBT concentrations were in the same range at both sites. Periphyton communities differed in biomass, but algal class composition and diatom diversity were similar. Community tolerance of P-communities was significantly enhanced for prometryn, but not for PNA and TBT, confirming site-specific effects on local periphyton for prometryn only. Thus, PICT enables in situ effect confirmation of phytotoxic compounds at the community level and seems to be suitable to support confirmation and enhance ecological realism of EDA.