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ESTIMATION OF AQUATIC SPECIES SENSITIVITY AND POPULATION-LEVEL RESPONSES
Citation:
Barron, M., S Raimondo, AND F L. Mayer Jr. ESTIMATION OF AQUATIC SPECIES SENSITIVITY AND POPULATION-LEVEL RESPONSES. Presented at Society of Toxicology, New Orleans, LA, March 06 - 10, 2005.
Impact/Purpose:
Conference abstract
Description:
Determining species sensitivity and population-level responses of aquatic organisms to contaminants are critical components of criteria development and ecological risk assessment. To address data gaps in species sensitivity, the U.S. EPA developed the Interspecies Correlation Estimation (ICE) program to predict acute toxicity to under-represented taxa, and the Acute to Chronic Estimation (ACE) program to predict chronic toxicity. ICE is based on existing acute toxicity data for 143 aquatic and terrestrial species, and estimates acute toxicity using least squares regression and over 4000 interspecies correlations. ACE uses linear regression and accelerated life testing to predict no-effect and low-effect concentrations for chronic mortality. Both ICE and ACE generally predict acute and chronic toxicity within two-fold of measured values and seldom exceed four-fold. Population-level responses of aquatic species are estimated with matrix models using individual-level toxicity data, including altered survival and reproduction measured in life-cycle tests as input. Population modeling of pesticide toxicity to mysid shrimp has shown that population effects measured as changes in population growth rate can occur at both lethal and sublethal concentrations and that population extinction correlates with median lethal concentrations. These modeling approaches provide useful tools for estimating the sensitivity of endangered species and other taxa with limited data, and for determining population-level responses from traditional organism-level toxicity test data.