Copper Effects on Potential Sediment Test Organisms: the Importance of Appropriate Sensitivity

This article provides a review of available information on the sensitivities to copper of marine and estuarine organisms, primarily those that might be suitable for use in sediment toxicity tests, including temperate and tropical species. This review was necessitated by a need to identify a suitably sensitive test species for a specific study when preliminary testing showed that the original species selected was insensitive to copper. This example illustrates the importance of ensuring that the relative sensitivity of test species to the contaminant(s) of interest is evaluated as part of test species selection.