Are there indicators that should be added to this list?

The contaminants addressed in sediments are indicated but the contaminants in organisms is not specified?

Ecosystem condition could be used as a category for describing the health of the Gulf of Maine. Their is plenty of information on commercial fishery landings which could be used as "indicators".

Suggest adding a specific sediment toxicity indicator under this category because the sediment quality triad indicator is quite broad. There are a number of valid screening indicators for sediment toxicity specifically, such as Microtox solid phase assay, elutriate testing, etc. All these can provide valuable screening information for which there is a broad base of data to allow interpretation. In a sense this is the tox part of the sediment quality triad.

Is this cause-effect relationship between adding efluent containing a known contaminant and measuring its buildup in the sediments/

You might add an indicator that relates time-average water concentration to body burdens of filter-feeders. Neff and Burns (Neff JM, Burns WA. 1996. Estimation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon concentrations in the water column based on tissue residues in mussels and salmon: An equilibrium partitioning approach. Environ Toxicol Chem 15:2240-2253.) did this for PAH in water using mussel tissue PAH concentrations. This would tie in with the indicators in the Contaminant Levels in Organisms category.

How is the indicator "Quality of habitats affected" defined. Not clear what this means specifically.

Should there be a contaminant-specific marine organism disease indicator? For example, imposex in Nucella is a TBT-specific condition. Could a matrix be set up to identify others? A more general indicator of pollutant-related physiological status is scope for growth in bivalves as pioneered by John Widdows and the Plymouth Marine Lab group. Would this be useful? The problem is that it would require a lab that can measure. The value of a physiological indicator of sentinel species health is that it can be related to tissue contaminant levels according to the mechanism of toxicity of the contaminants present. For example, see: J. Widdows, K.A. Burns, N.R. Menon, D.S. Page, and S. Soria. Measurement of Physiological Energetics (Scope for Growth) and Chemical Contaminants in Mussels (Arca zebra) Transplanted Along a Contamination Gradient in Bermuda. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 138 (1990) 99-117.

Testing ability to add new comment.

Hi Christine,
I was going to comment that "it is not correct to state, yes, that contaminant concentrations in organisms can used definatively in a cause-effect manner", but I couldn't scroll down to this last category in your box!

Cheeers, gareth.

What has human tissue body burden got to do with the Gulf of Maine? Human body burdens are influenced by many sources other than aquatic sources and I don't think they are particulary indicative of marine ecosystem health