Effects of environmental stressors such as pollutants and anthropogenic perturbance on the health of aquatic/terrestrial ecosystems usually involve a series of biological responses ranging from the biomarkers to the individual, population and community levels. Extrapolation is the use of existing information for the prediction of events in another situation that is biologically different from that where the existing information was gathered. To establish relationships and to determine the feasibility of extrapolating between higher and lower levels of biological organization, temporal or spatial patterns in organism responses to contaminant Invertebrates are widely regarded as powerful monitoring tools in environmental management because of their great abundance, diversity and functional importance, their sensitivity to perturbation, and the ease with which they can be sampled loading have been studied with various living organisms and ecosystems. By identifying and establishing relationships between levels of biological organization of invertebrates we should be better able to understand the mechanisms of stress responses in ecological systems that could ultimately result in improved predictive capability of ecological risk assessment and also allow for more informed decisions regarding remedial actions.

• Kijong Cho(Division of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering, Korea University)