In Situ Reproductive Bioassay with Caged Gammarus fossarum (Crustacea): Part 2—Evaluating the Relevance of Using a Molt Cycle Temperature‐Dependent Model as a Reference to Assess Toxicity in Freshwater Monitoring
Abstract
Active biomonitoring approaches are now recognized as relevant for monitoring water contamination and toxicity. Nevertheless, due to the confounding influence of variable and uncontrolled environmental conditions such as temperature, biological markers measured on transplanted individuals to assess water quality are difficult to interpret. The purpose of the present study is to propose a methodology for adapting a laboratory test of chronic sublethal toxicity based on the molting cycle of Gammarus fossarum to in situ assays. To this end, we 1) adapted the molt cycle temperature-dependent model developed in Part 1 (Chaumot et al. 2020, this issue) to the fluctuating temperatures measured in the field; 2) assessed the predictive power of our approach as a "reference value" from gammarids caged in 9 nonimpacted sites at different seasons; and 3) tested the relevance of our tool to interpret in situ reproductive bioassays from 5 upstream/downstream studies and a large-scale deployment in 12 sites. Our approach based on modeling the progress of gammarid molting cycle as a function of temperature appeared to be a relevant and robust tool for interpreting in situ observations in different environmental contexts in time and space. By avoiding using a "reference" or upstream situation as a baseline from which water quality could be assessed, this approach provides a real added value to water quality diagnosis in biomonitoring programs.
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BibTeX
@article{lopes2026situ,
title = {{In Situ Reproductive Bioassay with Caged Gammarus fossarum (Crustacea): Part 2—Evaluating the Relevance of Using a Molt Cycle Temperature‐Dependent Model as a Reference to Assess Toxicity in Freshwater Monitoring}},
author = {Christelle Lopes and Arnaud Chaumot and Benoit Xuereb and Romain Coulaud and Guillaume Jubeaux and Hervé Quéau and Adeline François and Olivier Geffard},
journal = {Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1002/etc.4656},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-03113305v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - In Situ Reproductive Bioassay with Caged Gammarus fossarum (Crustacea): Part 2—Evaluating the Relevance of Using a Molt Cycle Temperature‐Dependent Model as a Reference to Assess Toxicity in Freshwater Monitoring
AU - Christelle Lopes
AU - Arnaud Chaumot
AU - Benoit Xuereb
AU - Romain Coulaud
AU - Guillaume Jubeaux
AU - Hervé Quéau
AU - Adeline François
AU - Olivier Geffard
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/18
JO - Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
DO - 10.1002/etc.4656
UR - https://hal.science/hal-03113305v1
AB - Active biomonitoring approaches are now recognized as relevant for monitoring water contamination and toxicity. Nevertheless, due to the confounding influence of variable and uncontrolled environmental conditions such as temperature, biological markers measured on transplanted individuals to assess water quality are difficult to interpret. The purpose of the present study is to propose a methodology for adapting a laboratory test of chronic sublethal toxicity based on the molting cycle of Gammarus fossarum to in situ assays. To this end, we 1) adapted the molt cycle temperature-dependent model developed in Part 1 (Chaumot et al. 2020, this issue) to the fluctuating temperatures measured in the field; 2) assessed the predictive power of our approach as a "reference value" from gammarids caged in 9 nonimpacted sites at different seasons; and 3) tested the relevance of our tool to interpret in situ reproductive bioassays from 5 upstream/downstream studies and a large-scale deployment in 12 sites. Our approach based on modeling the progress of gammarid molting cycle as a function of temperature appeared to be a relevant and robust tool for interpreting in situ observations in different environmental contexts in time and space. By avoiding using a "reference" or upstream situation as a baseline from which water quality could be assessed, this approach provides a real added value to water quality diagnosis in biomonitoring programs.
SN - 0730-7268
SN - 1552-8618
ER -