Protocol for evaluating whether a test substance shows bioaccumulative properties using Haber’s Law

Abstract

This protocol analyses the data describing mortality of honey bees during a chronic 10-day oral exposure paradigm as specified in the OECD Test Guideline: Honey bee (Apis mellifera L.), Chronic oral toxicity test,10-day feeding test in the laboratory (Kling & Schmitzer 2015). The protocol tests the relationship between the concentration of the test substance in the honey bees’ diet, denoted C, and the duration of exposure that is required to produce a specified level of injury (mortality) among the exposed bees, or the ‘time-to-effect’, denoted t. Specifically, the protocol derives a t-vs.-C relationship from the data and determines its slope when plotted on logarithmic axes, which indicates whether the data conform to Haber’s law. The analysis can identify potentially bioaccumulative test substances, because they are not expected to conform to Haber’s law.