The usefulness of organisms as biomonitors of environmental quality has been demonstrated repeatedly during episodes of acute poisoning. Management goals now largely seek to avoid or mitigate these occurrences, concomitant with introduction of chemicals to the environment. Biomonitors have largely been adopted as sentinel organisms to warn of excess bioavailability of xenobiotics. Uptake and retention processes in any organisms, however, are only semi-passive, so that metabolic processes may influence both concentration ranges over which accumulation occurs, and mechanisms controlling it.
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This manuscript is available at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ and may be cited as: Laughlin, R. B., Jr., & Guard, H. E. (1986). Biomonitors: practice and concepts. In Oceans ‘86 proceedings: the Ocean -- an international workplace: conference. Piscataway, N.J.: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Vol. 4, Proceedings International Organotin Symposium [23-25 September, 1986]. (pp. 862-866). Piscataway, N.J.: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. doi:10.1109/OCEANS.1986.1160564
Florida Atlantic University. Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute contribution #520.