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Review of existing terrestrial bioaccumulation models and terrestrial bioaccumulation modeling needs for organic chemicals
Citation:
Gobas, F., L. Burkhard, W. Doucette, K. Sappington, E. Verbruggen, B. Hope, M. Bonnell, J. Arnot, AND J. Tarazona. Review of existing terrestrial bioaccumulation models and terrestrial bioaccumulation modeling needs for organic chemicals. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management. Allen Press, Inc., Lawrence, KS, 12(1):123-134, (2016).
Impact/Purpose:
There is growing concern internationally about chemicals that bioaccumulation in food webs. Current methods for classifying a chemical as bioaccumulative are based upon science developed for aquatic organisms. Application of criteria and thresholds appropriate for aquatic organisms are not always appropriate for terrestrial organisms because their respiration is with air and not with water. As a result, chemicals that would be considered non-bioaccumulative in aquatic food webs can be bioaccumulative in terrestrial foods. This paper provides a review of existing models for predicting bioaccumulation in terrestrial species, highlights limitations and gaps associated with the existing models, and provides research recommendations for improving models for terrestrial bioaccumulation. The paper is an output from a workshop sponsored by International Life Sciences Institute, Health and Environmental Sciences Institute, Washington, DC on terrestrial bioaccumulation.
Description:
Protocols for terrestrial bioaccumulation assessments are far less-developed than for aquatic systems. This manuscript reviews modeling approaches that can be used to assess the terrestrial bioaccumulation potential of commercial organic chemicals. Models exist for plant, invertebrate, mammal, and avian species and for entire terrestrial food-webs including some that consider spatial factors. Limitations and gaps in terrestrial bioaccumulation modeling were identified and include the lack of availability of QSARs for biotransformation and dietary assimilation efficiencies for terrestrial species; the lack of models and QSARs for important terrestrial species such as insects, amphibians and reptiles; the lack of standardize testing protocols for plants that has limited development of plant models; and the limited chemical domain of existing bioaccumulation models and QSARs, e.g., primarily applicable to nonionic organic chemicals and not to ionic and ionogenic organic chemicals Additionally, there is an urgent needed for high-quality field measurement data sets for validating models and assessing their performance. Further, there is a need to improve coordination among laboratory, field, and modeling efforts on bioaccumulative substances in order to improve the state of the science for challenging substances.
