PARENT SESSION

Interactive Poster Session: Soil Ecotoxicology
Hall 18
8:35 AM - 12:30 PM, Tuesday, 29 April 2003
Chair: Römbke, J.¹, ¹
Co-chair: Eisenträger, A.², ²

(TU18/8) Influence of soil properties on the reproduction of common test species (earthworms, collembolans and plants).

Römbke, Jörg¹, Jänsch, Stephan¹, Jessen-Hesse, Volker², Terytze, Konstantin², ¹ ECT Oekotoxikologie GmbH, Flörsheim, Germany² Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

ABSTRACT- In the German Federal Soil Protection Act (BBodSchG) the function of soil as a habitat for soil organisms and plants is listed as one protection goal. Preferably, the risk of contaminants to soil organisms is determined by means of ecotoxicological tests. Since the beginning of the 1990s, there have been intense efforts on both the national and international level to develop suitable and standardised test methods for appraising soil protection. Most of these methods have been developed for the evaluation of single compounds; i.e. they are performed with a few species in artificial substrates which are spiked with the test compound. However, when the ecotoxicological hazard potential of a potentially contaminated field soil has to be evaluated, it must be differentiated between the effects of properties of the field soil itself and the effects caused by the contamination. Unfortunately, the influence of natural soil characteristics on the results of ecotoxicological tests using standard earthworm, collembolan, and plant tests is not known. Therefore, as part of the joint research project 'Optimisation of Ecotoxicological Test Methods for Routine Use (ERNTE)', eight uncontaminated soils were tested according to standard ISO protocols, using Eisenia andrei (Lumbricidae), Folsomia candida (Collembola) and Brassica rapa (Brassicaceae) as test species. By selecting soils covering a very broad range of biologically important soil characteristics like pH, grain size distribution and organic carbon content, the ecological range of these standard test species could be determined. In addition, the selected soils represent major soil classes typical for Germany as defined in recent biological soil classification and assessment systems like BBSK and RefeSol. The results gained so far indicate that the reproduction of the three test species is clearly differently affected by the various soil properties, underlining the need for a battery of tests when assessing the biological quality of soils.

Key words: ecological range, laboratory test, soil classification, standard soils