Abstract
This paper reviews the authors’ ongoing research activities for the development of toxicity tests for marine organisms and the ecological hazard assessment process for anti-fouling agents in the marine environment. Some test protocols based on the response of marine organisms have been standardized by governmental agencies and international organizations. However, in Japan there are still only a few standardized test protocols for domestic marine organisms. The accurate prediction of the No Effect Concentration for anti-fouling agents requires the standardization of (i) a toxicity test method with a toxicant-sensitive organism, (ii) a simple and easy chronic-toxicity test protocol with domestic species, (iii) the toxicity test method for easily decomposable chemicals, and (iv) the cumulative-toxicity test method for a mixture of chemicals.
