Biotesting of Soil Ecotoxicity in Case of Chemical Contamination: Modern Approaches to Integration for Environmental Assessment (a Review)

The main directions of using biotesting to assess the environmental risk of pollution—(a) predictive (predicting possible effects of chemicals and determining safe levels of their use) and (b) diagnostic, allowing one to assess the real hazard or damage at the moment—are considered. The historical stages of ecotoxicology development are analyzed. An idea is given about the variety of test systems and methods for assessing ecotoxicity and criteria for selecting test species in biotest batteries. Examples of the use of OMICS technologies, molecular biomarkers, nanoecotoxicology, and ecotoxicogenomics in the assessment of soil toxicity are presented. In world practice, in order to compare the results of standard tests, reference (standard, artificial) soil recommended as a reference sample according to the ISO11268 protocol. Attention is focused on the relevance of soil assessment based on the biotic concept of modern environmental control. The advantages and disadvantages of some methods and indices of the ecological state of soils based on the use of reactions of living systems to environmental pollution (in particular, the so called integral indicator of the biological state of the soil (IIBS), the functional diversity of the microbiome (FDM), and the state index according to the TRIAD methodology) are characterized. At the present stage, the best way to integrate the results of biotesting into the overall assessment of soils is an interdisciplinary TRIAD methodology, which implies a set of chemical, bioindication (in situ) and toxicological (ex situ) studies.