INTRODUCTION 



The goal of the National Status and Trends (NS&T) Program is to determine the status 

 of and trends in environmental quality of marine and estuarine areas of the United States. 

 To satisfy that goal, NOAA has begun monitoring the concentration of selected, potentially 

 toxic, chemical contaminants (e.g., NOAA, 1987). The NS&T Program is currently analyzing 

 sediment samples from about 200 sites, bivalve samples from about 150 sites, and fish 

 samples from 50 sites nationwide for chemical contaminants. Quantitative data are 

 generated for a large suite of potentially toxic contaminants at each of these sites annually. 

 The analyses, however, include only very limited tests of biological significance of the 

 contaminants that are found in the test media. There are no standards with which to judge 

 the biological relevance of the contaminant data from sediments, bivalves, and biota. Until 

 such standards are developed and accepted, additional empirical evidence is needed to 

 determine which sites are sufficiently contaminated to be of some biological concern. 



An evaluation of prospective measures of biological effects was initiated in San 

 Francisco Bay in 1987 to determine the relative attributes or performance of selected tests 

 that may be most useful in the NS&T Program. Those measures of effects that are most 

 promising will be used on a broader scale as a part of the NS&T Program testing protocols. 

 This report summarizes the results of that evaluation. 



APPROACH 



The overall approach taken was to solicit the scientific community for suggested 

 measures of biological effects, select those candidates that best met specific programmatic 

 criteria, and evaluate their performance over a range in contamination in a selected location. 

 This approach was roughly analogous to that taken by the Group of Experts on the Effects of 

 Pollutants (GEEP) of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) in a practical 

 workshop on biological effects of contaminants held in Oslo, Norway in August, 1986 (Bayne 

 et al, 1988). In that workshop, a wide variety of biological tests was evaluated, including 

 some that were evaluated in this study. 



The relative sensitivities of a variety of animals for use in sediment toxicity tests have 

 been evaluated in previous studies (e.g., Swartz et al. 1979; Williams et al, 1986; Chapman et 

 ah, 1984; Chapman, 1987; Giesy et al, 1988). Acute mortality, measures of abnormal larval 

 development, impaired physiological functions, altered behavior, and chromosomal damage 

 were recorded in these previous evaluations of toxicity tests. Some tests evaluated in this 

 study, notably the 10-d solid phase test with R. abronius (Swartz et al, 1985) and the 48-h 

 elutriate test with bivalve embryos (Chapman and Morgan 1983), have been used in many 

 regional assessments of sediment toxicity (e.g., Williams et al, 1986; Swartz et al, 1982; 

 Chapman et al, 1987; Swartz et al, 1986). Some others are relatively new and had not been 

 evaluated previously. 



The solicitation was issued in 1986 and required that suggested tests meet, as well as 

 possible, eight criteria. Those criteria specified that the biological tests: 



(1) Include end-point(s) that is (are) of significance to the longevity (survival) or 

 reproductive success of the organism(s); 



(2) Be usable in distinguishing spatial gradients among sampling sites and long-term 

 trends at each site in effects of exposure to chemical contaminants; 



(3) Be sensitive indicators of exposure to mixtures of toxic chemicals; 



(4) Be of marine or estuarine organisms; 



