Three aspects of the study of effects of pollution in marine systems are discussed. First is the evaluation of relative sensitivities and reliabilities of different methods of detecting pollution, includ~ng a brief contrast of processes operating in mesocosms and in the field. Second is the problem of interpretation of pollution, i e determining the importance of the observed effects of pollution to the biological system. Species selected for detecting pollution may not provide useful information about the econoinic effects on explo~ted parts of natural systems, nor about trophic structure of a community, nor about future sizes of populations of important species. The choice of appropriate species a s indicators or detectors of pollution also requires determination of how representative they are of other species likely to b e affected by pollution. Finally, there is the problem of prediction of future consequences of pollution. Some methods used to detect pollutants might b e useful a s early warnings of future deleterious effects, although the usefulness of these measures may b e lessened by the decoupling of reproductive rates of many marine invertebrates from the eventual recruitment to adult populations. Other measures such as patterns in whole assemblages of species can usually only detect pollutants after sufficient time has elapsed for populations to have changed. Nevertheless, these offer more direct measurements of the importance of pollution to the continued functional well-being of the system. A mixture of different types of measures allows the best synthesis of predictive power while providing the most useful information for interpretation of the consequences of pollution to a marine system.

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