1. Which distribution to choose for deriving a species sensitivity distribution? Implications from analysis of acute and chronic ecotoxicity data.
- Author
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Yanagihara, Miina, Hiki, Kyoshiro, and Iwasaki, Yuichi
- Subjects
SPECIES distribution ,DISTRIBUTION (Probability theory) ,ENVIRONMENTAL risk assessment ,WEIBULL distribution ,AKAIKE information criterion ,LOGNORMAL distribution ,KNOWLEDGE gap theory ,CHEMICAL testing - Abstract
Species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) estimated by fitting a statistical distribution to ecotoxicity data are indispensable tools used to derive the hazardous concentration for 5 % of species (HC5) and thereby a predicted no-effect concentration in environmental risk assessment. Whereas various statistical distributions are available for SSD estimation, the fundamental question of which statistical distribution should be used has received limited systematic analysis. We aimed to address this knowledge gap by applying four frequently used statistical distributions (log-normal, log-logistic, Burr type III, and Weibull distributions) to acute and chronic SSD estimation using aquatic toxicity data for 191 and 31 chemicals, respectively. Based on the differences in the corrected Akaike's information criterion (AICc) as well as visual inspection of the fitting of the lower tails of SSD curves, the log-normal SSD was generally better or equally good for the majority of chemicals examined. Together with the fact that the ratios of HC5 values of other alternative SSDs to those of log-normal SSDs generally fell within the range 0.1–10, our findings indicate that the log-normal distribution can be a reasonable first candidate for SSD derivation, which does not contest the existing widespread use of log-normal SSDs. [Display omitted] • Acute and chronic species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) were estimated. • Four statistical distributions frequently used were compared for ∼200 chemicals. • Log-normal SSD performed generally better or equally well in terms of prediction. • Ratios of HC5 of other SSDs to log-normal SSDs generally fell within 0.1–10 range. • Log-normal distribution is suggested as a reasonable first choice for deriving SSDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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