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Evaluation of the relative risk to birds of alternative pesticides using EPA’s TIM/MCnest Model
Citation:
Etterson, M., K. Garber, AND E. Odenkirchen. Evaluation of the relative risk to birds of alternative pesticides using EPA’s TIM/MCnest Model. SETAC North America, Salt Lake City, UT, November 01 - 05, 2015.
Impact/Purpose:
not applicable
Description:
Agricultural producers today have many choices of active ingredients for crop protection. These products come with different active ingredients, different modes of action, and that initiate different adverse outcome pathways. Use patterns also differ considerably among products in the timing, amount, frequency, and method of application. These differences result in different patterns of exposure, which will interact with species life-history to produce different effects in populations of non-target wildlife. In this project, we use an integrated modeling approach that combines USEPA’s Terrestrial Investigation Model (TIM) with the Markov Chain Nest Productivity Model (MCnest) to evaluate the relative risk of alternative pesticide application protocols to North American bird species that breed in or adjacent to croplands. We present examples from several insecticides representing different chemical classes and across many species of birds potentially affected. We demonstrate how the use of these models can help to classify the relative risk among alternative pesticides and explore the sensitivity of relative risk conclusions to changes in model parameters.