ABSTRACT
It was 1962, and the term biodiversity did not yet exist, nor did the term ecotoxicology, yet the relationship between pesticides and biodiversity was clearly and eloquently framed with the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962). The book presented the possibility that large-scale declines in avian populations were due to the application of DDT in the environment, with subsequent cascading impacts on the larger ecosystem. Biodiversity was first mentioned in a publication by Raymond Dasmann in 1968 but did not come into wide usage until the 1980s, most notably with the publication of Biodiversity (Wilson and Peter 1988), and the word ecotoxicology was coined by Truhaut in 1969 (Truhaut 1977). Although Silent Spring raised awareness of the effects of toxic substances on wildlife, the focus of environmental toxicology for many years was on single species effects, in many cases targeting impacts on individuals and extrapolating those to estimate the risk to populations.
