Poster Presentation Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Australasia 2021

EthoCRED: A framework to guide reporting and evaluation of the reliability and relevance of behavioural ecotoxicity studies (#171)

Michael G Bertram 1 , Marlene Ågerstrand 2 , Joel Allen 3 , Bryan W Brooks 4 5 , ZhiChao Dang 6 , Sabine Duquesne 7 , Alex T Ford 8 , Frauke Hoffmann 9 , Henner Hollert 10 , Stefanie Jacob 7 , Werner Kloas 11 , Nils Klüver 12 , Jim Lazorchak 3 , Mariana Ledesma 13 , Gerd Maack 7 , Steven D Melvin 14 , Silvia Mohr 7 , Stephanie Padilla 15 , Gregory Pyle 16 , Minna Saaristo 17 , René Sahm 7 , Stefan Scholz 13 , Els Smit 6 , Jeffery A Steevens 18 , Sanne van den Berg 19 , Bob BM Wong 20 , Michael Ziegler 21 , Tomas Brodin 1
  1. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, VäSTERBOTTEN, Sweden
  2. Department of Environmental Science, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Stockholm County, Sweden
  3. U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
  4. Department of Environmental Science, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, United States
  5. School of Environment, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
  6. National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands
  7. German Environment Agency (UBA), Dessau, Germany
  8. Institute of Marine Sciences, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire, United Kingdom
  9. Department of Chemical and Product Safety, German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, Berlin, Germany
  10. Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  11. Leibniz-Institute for Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany
  12. Environmental Research Center (UFZ), Leipzig, Germany
  13. Swedish Chemicals Agency (KemI), Stockholm, Stockholm County, Sweden
  14. Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University, Southport, Australia
  15. Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure, U.S. EPA, Durham, North Carolina, United States
  16. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
  17. The Environment Protection Authority Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  18. Columbia Environmental Research Center, Columbia, United States
  19. Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands
  20. Monash University, Melbourne, VICTORIA, Australia
  21. Animal Physiological Ecology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Behavioural analysis has been garnering significant attention as a broad indicator of sub-lethal toxicity, and has secured a place as an important sub-discipline in aquatic ecotoxicology. One of the most notable characteristics of behavioural research, compared to other established approaches in sub-lethal ecotoxicology (e.g. reproductive and developmental bioassays), is the wide range of study designs being used and the diversity of endpoints considered. At the same time, environmental hazard and risk assessment, which underpins regulatory decisions to protect the environment from potentially harmful chemicals, often recommends that ecotoxicological data be produced following accepted and validated test guidelines. These guidelines typically do not address behavioral changes, meaning that these, often sensitive, effects are not represented in hazard and risk assessments. Here, we propose a new tool, the EthoCRED evaluation method, for assessing the reliability and relevance of behavioural ecotoxicity data, which considers the unique requirements and challenges encountered in this field. This method, and accompanying reporting recommendations, are designed to serve as an extension of the ‘Criteria for Reporting and Evaluating Ecotoxicity Data (CRED)’ project. As such, EthoCRED can both accommodate the wide array of experimental design approaches seen in behavioural ecotoxicology, and is able to be readily implemented into regulatory frameworks in different jurisdictions to allow better integration of knowledge gained from behavioural testing into environmental protection. Furthermore, through our reporting recommendations, we aim to improve the reporting of behavioral studies in the peer-reviewed literature, and thereby increase their usefulness in chemicals regulation.