Reliably estimating the effect of toxicants on fertilization success in marine broadcast spawners |
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| Authors: | Marshall Dustin J |
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| Institution: | School of Integrative Biology/Centre for Marine Studies, University of Queensland, 4072 Queensland, Australia. d.marshall1@uq.edu.au |
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| Abstract: | Recently, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of ecotoxicological studies examining the effects of toxicants on fertilization success in marine broadcast spawners and it appears that this life-history stage is one of the most vulnerable to toxicants. Most of the studies examining this issue use single sperm concentrations in their assays. Here, I discuss recent advances in fertilization ecology that suggest this technique has some severe limitations resulting in unreliable estimations of the size and direction of toxicant effects. I present an alternative assay technique and two metrics (F(max) and Sperm](max)) that will reliably estimate the size of a toxicant's effect on fertilization success. This technique has the added advantage of making comparisons among species and studies easier without an impractical increase in effort. |
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