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Toward Guidelines for Population-level Ecological Risk Assessment: Results of a U.S. EPA Risk Assessment Forum Workshop
Citation:
MUNNS, JR., W. R., J. CHAPMAN, S. SCHAPPELLE, J. Cura, G. W. SUTER, M. T. Sorensen, T. FORBES, D. E. NACCI, S. NEWBOLD, AND R. Pastorek. Toward Guidelines for Population-level Ecological Risk Assessment: Results of a U.S. EPA Risk Assessment Forum Workshop. Presented at SETAC North American 29th Annual Meeting, Tampa, FL, November 16 - 20, 2008.
Impact/Purpose:
This presentation conveys the results of the Risk Assessment Forum's Workshop on Population-Level Ecological Risk Assessment. The workshop utilized expert opinion to articulate the current state of science and practice of population ecology concepts and approaches with respect to assessing risk to populations. Workshop results will inform the Risk Assessment Forum's decision regarding development of guidelines, supplemental to the 1998 Guidelines for Ecological Risk Assessment, for planning, performing and interpreting population-level ecological risk assessment in support of environmental management decisions within the Agency.
Description:
The choice of levels of biological organization reflected in ecological risk assessment (ERA) is receiving increasing attention. Most ERAs conducted for chemicals by the U.S. EPA, and indeed by most organizations worldwide, focus on organism-level attributes (e.g., survival, growth, or reproduction) as assessment endpoints as opposed to population-level attributes (e.g., abundance, age-class structure, or production). Risk to populations has only occasionally been evaluated directly by the U.S. EPA, yet many consider populations to be a fundamental ecological unit for protection.