Fish Species Sensitivity Ranking Depends on Pesticide Exposure Profiles

In the regulatory environmental risk assessment of plant protection products, the exposure tested in standard toxicity tests assumes simple exposure dynamics, such as constant exposure at the first stage of testing. However, environmental exposure can be highly dynamic. A species response to exposure is governed by toxicokinetics (TK) and toxicodynamics (TD). Therefore, it can be expected that the sensitivity of a species to a substance is dependent on the interplay of TKTD processes with the dynamics of the exposure. We investigated whether exposure dynamics affects species sensitivity of five fish species and if their sensitivity rankings differ among exposure profiles. We analyzed individual survival under projected surface water exposure to benzovindiflupyr. For this purpose, we calibrated compound‐ and species‐specific reduced general unified threshold models of survival (GUTS‐RED) models from standard laboratory toxicity data with the assumptions of stochastic death and individual tolerance. Using the calibrated models, we generated species sensitivity distributions based on median lethal profile multiplication factors for three characteristic exposure profiles. The analysis was performed using different GUTS‐RED implementations: openGUTS (MATLAB® and Windows® versions) and the R package morse. The sensitivity rankings of the fish species changed as a function of exposure profile. For a multiple‐peak scenario, rainbow trout was the most sensitive species. For a single peak followed by a slow concentration decline the most sensitive species was the fathead minnow (GUTS‐RED‐stochastic death) or the common carp (GUTS‐RED‐individual tolerance). Our results suggest that a single most sensitive species cannot be defined for all situations, all exposure profiles, and both GUTS‐RED variants. Environ Toxicol Chem 2022;41:1732–1741. © 2022 Syngenta. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.