New trends in statistical analysis of ecotoxicity tests and field monitoring

Abstract : Ecotoxicology is connected to statistics from the beginning. As ecotoxicologists aimed to prove the existence of effects or to insure the detection of pollutants they always needed their data to be significant, hi this case significant means that the probability for whatever detected being detected by chance is less than, say 5%. The hypothesis testing, in which different batches or field situations are compared for significance was thus the main device in the ecotoxicologist tool-box.