A New Method for Ecotoxicity Evaluation in Soil Environment –– A Laboratory Multispecies Microcosm

Abstract

Ecotoxicity is usually assessed using a number of tests on single species. But this does not include the simultaneous interactions of different organisms and chemicals. The present article is focused on introducing multispecies tests with soil organisms – microorganisms, plants and invertebrates. Another objective is to compare the effects of toxic reference substance (boric acid) when performing the multispecies test and adequate standard ecotoxicological tests to verify whether the proposed multispecies variation provides sufficient and relevant values. The results indicate the applicability of the multispecies microcosm concept developed for testing of chemicals.