Bioaccumulation in aquatic systems: methodological approaches, monitoring and assessment.

Bioaccumulation, the accumulation of a chemical in an organism relative to its level in the ambient medium, is of major environmental concern. Thus, monitoring chemical concentrations in biota are widely and increasingly used for assessing the chemical status of aquatic ecosystems. In this paper, various scientific and regulatory aspects of bioaccumulation in aquatic systems and the relevant critical issues are discussed. Monitoring chemical concentrations in biota can be used for compliance checking with regulatory directives, for identification of chemical sources or event-related environmental risk assessment. Assessing bioaccumulation in the field is challenging since many factors have to be considered that can affect the accumulation of a chemical in an organism. Passive sampling can complement biota monitoring since samplers with standardised partition properties can be used over a wide temporal and geographical range. Bioaccumulation is also assessed for regulation of chemicals of environmental concern whereby mainly data from laboratory studies on fish bioaccumulation are used. Field data can, however, provide additional important information for regulators. Strategies for bioaccumulation assessment still need to be harmonised for different regulations and groups of chemicals. To create awareness for critical issues and to mutually benefit from technical expertise and scientific findings, communication between risk assessment and monitoring communities needs to be improved. Scientists can support the establishment of new monitoring programs for bioaccumulation, e.g. in the frame of the amended European Environmental Quality Standard Directive.

Aquatic toxicity of the macrolide antibiotic clarithromycin and its metabolites.

The human macrolide antibiotic clarithromycin is widespread in surface waters. Our study shows that its major metabolite 14-hydroxy(R)-clarithromycin is found in surface waters in comparable amounts. This metabolite is known to be pharmacologically active. Additionally, clarithromycin is partly metabolised to N-desmethyl-clarithromycin, which has no antimicrobial activity. For clarithromycin, some ecotoxicological studies on aquatic organisms have been published. However, many of them are not conform with the scientific principles as given in the "Technical guidance for deriving environmental quality standards" (TGD-EQS), because numerous studies were poorly documented and the methods did not contain analytical measurements confirming that the exposure concentrations were in the range of ± 20% of the nominal concentrations. Ecotoxicological effects of clarithromycin and its two metabolites on the zebrafish Danio rerio (embryo test), the microcrustacean Daphnia magna, the aquatic monocotyledonous macrophyte Lemna minor, the freshwater green alga Desmodesmus subspicatus (Chlorophyta) and the cyanobacterium Anabaena flosaquae were investigated in compliance with the TGD-EQS. Environmental risk assessment was performed using ErC10 values of Anabaena, the species most sensitive to clarithromycin and 14-hydroxy(R)-clarithromycin in our testing. Based oncomparable toxicity and similar concentrations of clarithromycin and its active metabolite 14-hydroxy(R)-clarithromycin in surface waters, an additional multiplication factor of 2 to the assessment factor of 10 on the ErC10 of clarithromycin should be used. Consequently, a freshwater quality standard of 0.130 µg L(-1) is proposed for clarithromycin as the "lead substance". Taking this additional multiplication factor of 2 into account, single monitoring of clarithromycin may be sufficient, in order to reduce the number of substances listed for routine monitoring programs.