Making Sense of Chemical Stress Application of Dynamic Energy Budget Theory in Ecotoxicology and Stress Ecology

Have you ever asked yourself why the effects of toxic chemicals depend on the exposure time? Or asked why stress effects on growth and reproduction are so different in the same organism, even though these responses must be linked in some causal way? Did you ever wish to understand toxic effects, so that you can make an educated prediction of effects under other conditions? Or do you want to understand why toxic effects depend on other factors such as temperature, food density, and life stage? This book addresses those questions by taking a radically different approach than what is common in ecotoxicology and stress ecology: by simplifying biological reality to an enormous extent. In this book, I will present a mechanistic treatment of chemical effects. The main focus lies on one particularly useful framework for the interpretation of toxic effects, namely Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) theory. Even if you are not convinced that this theory is the way to go for your particular problem, knowledge of the concepts behind it allows you to examine your (and other people's) data and models more critically. DEB theory is a powerful framework for ecotoxicology and stress ecology. This book provides a gentle introduction into the concepts behind the theory, and how to apply them in practice. The book is completely "math free", but a technical support document is available without charge. Who should read this book?......Page 4 Limitations of this book......Page 5 Disclaimer......Page 6 Limiting the scope......Page 8 Many faces of chemicals stress......Page 9 Approaches to deal with complexity......Page 14 Can we simplify biological systems?......Page 20 Toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics......Page 22 Principles of mechanistic modelling......Page 23 Why do we need an energy budget?......Page 26 Concepts in the theory......Page 28 Summarising the standard deb model......Page 39 Response to different environments......Page 40 Link to measurable properties......Page 43 Deviations and extensions......Page 46 Basic principles......Page 54 The one-compartment model......Page 56 Logical extensions from the deb perspective......Page 60 Other extensions of toxicokinetics......Page 65 Summary......Page 69 Basic principles......Page 72 Ageing or senescence......Page 74 What is a good dose metric for toxicants?......Page 76 Linking dose metrics to effects......Page 79 Multiple stressors......Page 87 Hidden forms of multistress......Page 92 General strategy of dealing with data......Page 98 Types of data that are useful......Page 99 Selecting an appropriate mode of action......Page 100 Optimisation......Page 101 Likelihood maximisation and confidence intervals......Page 106 The art of model fitting......Page 107 Summary......Page 108 Daphnia and fluoranthene......Page 110 Capitella and nonylphenol......Page 113 Where are we now, and where do we go?......Page 120 Bibliography......Page 121 Glossary......Page 134