ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the work published after 1970, as it was only then that a greater degree of standardization of the methods for conducting toxicity tests was achieved. Organochlorine (OC) compounds are more toxic than organophosphate (OP) compounds to fish, although a few of the latter are as toxic as some of the highly toxic OC compounds. Hydrogen ion concentration (pH) influences the toxicity of herbicides, as most of them are ionizable. Maximum acceptable toxicant concentration (MATC) calculated for species amenable to laboratory testing can be used for establishing safe concentrations for other species that cannot be tested in the laboratory. Carbamates are moderately toxic to fish, but highly toxic to invertebrates. The cyano-substitution of the phenoxybenzyl alcohol moiety enhances the toxicity of pyrethroids to fish. Brown trout was the most sensitive species to OCs, and coho salmon, the most sensitive to carbamates; goldfish was the least sensitive to any group of compounds.
