Ecotoxicology: The Study of Pollutants in Ecosystems

Key Features
* A classic proven by its 2nd edition.
* Still the only book to properly integrate ecological principles with chemistry/biochemistry
* Focuses on the interaction between ecology and toxicology
* Designed for use by toxicologists with no ecology training, and for ecologists with no toxicology training
* There is a new chapter on pollutants in habitats and global warming

Audience: Undergraduate and graduate students in ecology, toxicology, and environmental studies; policy makers in environmental health, ecology, and industrial safety.

Pollutants act either directly on individual organisms or indirectly by modifying the non-living (abiotic) environment. In order to properly understand these processes, a basic grounding in ecosystem ecology is needed, but from a toxicological perspective.
This text and this new edition fully revises and expands the coverage of this subject. Following a brief introduction to the principal characteristics of both pollutants and ecosystems, the various ecosystem components are considered in more detail. Populations, communities and gene pools are examined with an emphasis on the ways in which pollutants affect them specifically. The indirect effects of pollution are considered separately in a new chapter with particular attention paid to the mechanisms and biological effects of global warming. A discussion of the methods used to predict and to monitor the effects of pollutants, some illustrative examples of pollution problems and a final summary discussion, complete the book.
Certain key themes and cautions run throughout the entire text. Assessing toxicological impact is a far from simple process. Measures of acute toxicity, though important for individual organisms, have limited relevance to actual ecological impacts, since sublethal effects can be just as, or more damaging to populations. Screening and predictive tests based on acute toxicity are therefore biased against detecting ecological effects. Further, the monitoring and control of pollution damage also involves value judgements: What are the environmentalists trying to achieve and protect? The complexity of ecosystems and communities requires equally complex analysis, rather than the often simplistic application of absolute rules derived from laboratory toxicity tests. As technology and the impact of human activity on the environment develops and changes, the questions posed multiply and become ever more complex.
This book has been an invaluable primer for students in ecology, biochemistry, environmental studies, pollution science and industry. The third edition will extend its relevance into the next millennium.

V.V. Pillay

The book on the whole is written lucidly,rendering a complicated area of toxicology easy to comprehend and assimilate. The presentation of the subject is flawless and the list of references at the end of the book is impressively exhaustive. ...All in all,this book could serve as an individual addition to any library stocking books on toxicology,as well as an asset to all students and professionals dealing with any aspect of the subject.

Frank Moriarty, Ph.D., has spent over 25 years researching the ecological effects of pollution. For over 8 years he was part of a research unit working on plant-parasitic nematodes at the University of Cambridge. He also joined the Nature Conservancy, and later became part of the Natural Environmental Research Council.