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Food Web Exposure and Consequent Effects of PFAS on Birds
Citation:
Etterson, Matt, J. Haselman, A. Pesano, E. Pavlovic, A. Odegard, P. Dummer, AND C. Custer. Food Web Exposure and Consequent Effects of PFAS on Birds. Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program & Environmental Security Technology Certification Program and DoD Operational EnergySERDP-ESTCP-OE-Innovation Symposium, Arlington, VA, November 29 - December 02, 2022. https://doi.org/10.23645/epacomptox.21657398
Impact/Purpose:
Poster presented to the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program & Environmental Security Technology Certification Program and DoD Operational Energy (SERDP-ESTCP-OE) Innovation Symposium December 2022. This work aims to provide data and computational tools for modeling exposure of insectivorous bird populations to PFAS and subsequent effects. This work addresses the Department of Defense’s need to understand how PFAS contamination from aqueous film forming foams (AFFF) on and around military bases is impacting local wildlife.
Description:
Laboratory and field studies suggest that exposure to PFOS (and perhaps other PFAS) may impair avian reproduction. Wetland-associated insectivorous birds may be at particular risk though substantial uncertainties remain, including, 1) the specific dietary pathways leading to avian exposure, 2) the role of bioaccumulation and biomagnification within invertebrate communities leading to avian exposure, 3) the specific endogenous systems and adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) perturbed by PFAS exposure, and 4) the fitness consequences of exposure at realistic environmental concentrations. We propose to address these knowledge gaps by characterizing PFAS concentrations at contaminated, reference, and experimental sites in Duluth, MN, USA. At the broadest scale, our approach is to develop experimental populations of three breeding songbird species at six sites with variable levels of PFAS contamination, including a subset of birds that will be dosed with PFOS under semi-controlled conditions. These sites and species will provide the environmental, biological, and ecological data used to address our objectives. Food web modeling will be done using both static and dynamic models with field-collected data on PFAS concentrations in environmental media (soil, sediment, and water) and invertebrate prey. These data will be augmented with prey identification using DNA metabarcoding and isotope analysis of trophic status (δ15N) and terrestrial versus aquatic source (δ13C) of invertebrate prey. Static food web models will employ bioconcentration factors, bioaccumulation factors, and biota sediment accumulation factors (BCFs, BAFs, and BSAFs). Dynamic bioenergetic models will compare whole nestling PFAS concentrations to predictions based on consumption rates of contaminated prey. Nestling biochemical measurements in blood and tissues will inform predictive linkages along AOPs to apical outcomes relevant to population modeling and to support toxicodynamic modeling of PFAS-impacted physiology. Reproductive success will be modeled as a multistate Markov process. Fitness will be estimated and modeled using endogenous lifecycle models (ELMs). Pilot data received to date support our site-choices, with sites thought to be contaminated showing relatively high (µg/g) concentrations of PFOS. Limited analyses of co-occurring contaminants suggest that many chemicals known or suspected to cause adverse effects on avian reproduction are at low concentrations and not likely to confound interpretations of the PFAS-reproductive success relationship.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Food Web Exposure and Consequent Effects of PFAS on Birds
ETTERSONETAL.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 929.587 KB, about PDF)