Yang Dongning, Hou Yin, Wei Chao, Ling Jianan, Zheng Xin
State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012, China.
Center of Eco-Environmental Monitoring and Scientific Research, Administration of Ecology and Environment of Haihe River Basin and Beihai Sea Area, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of People's Republic of China, Tianjin 300170, China.
Toxics. 2025 Aug 20;13(8):694. doi: 10.3390/toxics13080694.
Microcosm technology serves as a sophisticated tool for simulating natural ecosystems, facilitating the examination of pollutants' ecological impacts across population, community, and ecosystem scales. Currently, this technology finds extensive application in ecological toxicology and ecological risk assessment research. This concise review highlights the utility of microcosm technology in ecotoxicology, detailing the establishment of aquatic microcosms and analyzing key research trends to assess the ecological impacts of pollutants. It emphasizes the evaluation of pesticides, industrial chemicals, and heavy metals, providing a comparative analysis of safety thresholds derived from microcosm studies versus other methods. Finally, the review underscores the four urgent directions for future exploration: (a) track pollutant metabolites in microcosms; (b) develop microcosms with diverse species for natural ecosystem mimicry; (c) use DNA macrobarcoding to assess zooplankton and link it to species abundance; (d) study reasons behind no observed effect concentration (NOEC) vs. the 95% harmless concentration (HC5) values in microcosm studies. The determination of these directions helps to fill the gaps in understanding the fate and effects of pollutants within controlled ecosystem simulations.
微宇宙技术是模拟自然生态系统的精密工具，有助于在种群、群落和生态系统尺度上研究污染物的生态影响。目前，该技术在生态毒理学和生态风险评估研究中得到广泛应用。这篇简要综述强调了微宇宙技术在生态毒理学中的作用，详细介绍了水生微宇宙的建立，并分析了评估污染物生态影响的关键研究趋势。它着重评估了农药、工业化学品和重金属，并对微宇宙研究得出的安全阈值与其他方法进行了比较分析。最后，综述强调了未来探索的四个紧迫方向：（a）追踪微宇宙中的污染物代谢物；（b）开发具有多种物种的微宇宙以模拟自然生态系统；（c）使用DNA宏条形码评估浮游动物并将其与物种丰度联系起来；（d）研究微宇宙研究中未观察到效应浓度（NOEC）与95%无害浓度（HC5）值之间差异的原因。确定这些方向有助于填补在受控生态系统模拟中理解污染物归宿和影响方面的空白。
