Table 43. Subjective rating of each biological test end-point with regard to five 

 performance criteria (see accompanying text for an explanation of the criteria). 



AHH activity no 

 Cytochrome P-450 content/ 



EROD activity yes 



Steroid hormone content no 



Reproductive success nd 



Micronuclei yes 



no 



no 

 no 

 rd 

 no 



yes 



yes 

 yes 

 rd 

 yes 



? 



7 



nd 

 no 



no 



yes 

 ? 



rd 



RECOMMENDATIONS 



All of the biological measures that were evaluated provided useful information and 

 most should be viewed as candidates for future use. None should be considered as the best, 

 or the worst, but each has distinct strengths and weaknesses. Because the contamination of 

 marine areas near urban centers often results in complex mixtures of chemicals, biological 

 responses to those mixtures would be expected to be equally (or more) complex. Some 

 chemicals may be acutely lethal and a short-term bioassay of sediment could be a useful 

 indicator of the bioavailability and toxicity of those chemicals. Other chemicals may 

 induce subtle changes that are expressed or quantifiable over only long periods of time. Tests 

 of mutagenicity and/or enzymatic response may be useful in evaluating exposure of biota to 

 these chemicals. No single biological measure can be expected to suffice as the sole test of 

 effects of complex mixtures of contaminants. The measures evaluated in the present study 

 should be viewed as a menu of candidates from which a suite of complementary tests can be 

 selected and tailored for use in satisfying specific programmatic and technical objectives. 

 Each measure has certain strengths and weaknesses that should be evaluated in the 

 selection of the specific suite of tests. 



95 



