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Assessing acute ecological risks of heavy metals to freshwater organisms by species sensitivity distributions |
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Abstract Species sensitivity distributions (SSD) method was used to assess the ecological risk of six heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Hg, Pb, Zn and Mn) to freshwater organisms. The acute toxicity data (LC50 or EC50) were collected from ECOTOX database and SSD curves were fitted based on BurrIII function. The acute ecological risks of the heavy metals and the sensitivity of different freshwater species (vertebrate and invertebrate) to these heavy metals were compared by the hazardous concentrations for 5% of the species (HC5) and the potential affected fractions (PAF). The the HC5 values of the six heavy metals were in the order: Cu
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Received: 13 January 2011
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