The definition of an environmental bioassay (i.e., a living test, trial, measure, or experiment) is ‘the use of living organisms to determine the effect of a substance, factor, or condition on that organism.’ Traditionally, the procedure is used to gauge the reaction of a living organism or population of organisms to a known dose (i.e., an administered concentration) of a chemical substance. Examples include testing drugs and their dose effects or assaying vitamins by examining their effect on the growth patterns of an organism.
When used in terms of environmental protection, a bioassay is usually intended to help predict and characterize impacts on living systems using the bioassay organism reactions as representative of impacts expected in populations for which the organism substitutes. A classic example of this type of bioassay is the use of canaries in mines before the advent of chemical testing for air pollution. These birds are more sensitive than are humans to poison gas and...
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© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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DeSanto, R.S. (1999). Bioassay. In: Environmental Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4494-1_32
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4494-1_32
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