INTRODUCTION TO THE BREMERHAVEN WORKSHOP ON BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF CONTAMINANTS

A sea-going workshop on the biological effects techniques sponsored by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) was held at the Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven, Germany, from 12 to 30 March 1990. The main objective was to test a wide range of biological effects techniques on contaminant gradients under the kind of conditions that they might be used in a monitoring programme. Two gradients in the North Sea were used; the first in the German Bight extending from the mouths of the Rivers Elbe and Weser out to the Dogger Bank, the second gradient related to an exploratory drilling site. The aim was to relate biological data to chemical analyses of contaminants in water, sediments and organisms taken during the workshop from the same stations on the same gradients. Over 100 scientists from countries bordering the North Sea, as well as from Sweden, Poland and North America, carried out joint investigations on the 2 transects, primarily to test and compare a wide range of established and new biological techniques to monitor the effects of pollution. The work included physiological, biochemical, embryological, molecular, cellular and gross pathological studies in the dab Limanda limanda, as well as various sediment and water quality bioassays and indices of benthic community change. Besides providing a database that could be used for selection of techniques for monitoring, the workshop identified a number of new problems related to pollution of the North Sea that should be addressed. These are listed in the concluding section of this volume. This MEPS Special Volume provides an account of all the results of the workshop, prefaced by several papers that give background information to help interpret the results of the workshop. The biological and chemical data are given in tabulated and graphical form in the Appendices to this volume.