Impact/Purpose:

Research products developed under this plan will provide managers in the Office of Water and elsewhere with extrapolation methods and guidance to use when making decisions based on limited data sets. Specifically, 1) interspecies correlations will allow the user to estimate the acute toxicity for a species having no data from a common test species having acute data, and 2) ACE allows prediction of chronic toxicity using only acute toxicity data.

Description:

Effects on native fish and invertebrate populations are important indicators of changes in surface waters due to human-related impacts such as the damming of rivers, lowering of aquifers, addition of pollutants, and introduction of non-native species. The planned research to determine the utility of using surrogate species in hazard evaluations to estimate the potential for toxic chemicals to affect other aquatic species has the following objectives: 1. Assess the rainbow trout, fathead minnow, and sheepshead minnow as appropriate surrogate test species for endangered fishes and other species. 2. Determine differences in acute and chronic sensitivity to chemicals with differing modes of action (carbaryl, copper, 4-nonylphenol, pentachlorophenol, and permethrin) between surrogate test species and selected endangered organisms. 3. Develop interspecies correlations between surrogate test species and endangered fishes and other aquatic species using 48-h EC50/96-h LC50 data for the above five chemicals. 4. Develop user manual and software for interspecies correlations of acute toxicity data for aquatic species using data bases from Mayer and Ellersieck (1986), Mayer (1987), OPP, and AQUatic toxicity Information REetrieval (AQUIRE). 5. Enhance utility of ACE (acute-to-chronic endpoint) model to predict chronic toxicity to endangered and other species on a population basis.

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