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Integrating multiple lines of evidence to assess biological hazards of complex mixtures: A case study in the Maumee River
Citation:
Kahl, M., Dan Villeneuve, A. Schroeder, T. Saari, E. Randolph, S. Poole, K. Jensen, D. Feifarek, J. Davis, J. Cavallin, B. Blackwell, B. Berninger, AND G. Ankley. Integrating multiple lines of evidence to assess biological hazards of complex mixtures: A case study in the Maumee River. SETAC North America, Minneapolis, MN, November 12 - 16, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
This presentation will describe field investigations on chemical contaminants and their potential effects on aquatic organisms and ecosystems at several sites within the Maumee River estuary area of concern. Caged fish and water samplers were deployed at the sites, and tissue and water samples collected to examine biological effects of site water and associated chemistry. This work supports CSS Project 17.01, Adverse Outcome Pathway Discovery and Development, Task 2.2, Effects-based Monitoring and Surveillance AOP application case studies. The effort also supports the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), Action Plan II, objective 1.2.2 which is to “identify emerging contaminants and assess impacts on Great Lakes fish and wildlife.
Description:
Product Description:Due to technological improvements, increasing numbers of chemical contaminants are being detected in surface waters nation-wide, including the Great Lakes. Methods are needed to understand what impact these complex mixtures of contaminants can have on aquatic organisms and prioritize sites and chemicals that may require management actions in order to avoid environmental degradation. This presentation focuses on a case study conducted in the Maumee River watershed near Toledo, OH, which was designated as a Great Lakes Area of Concern. The case study shows how chemistry and biological effects monitoring approaches can guide ecosystem protection efforts. Abstract: Modern instrumental analytical techniques enable the identification and quantification of ever increasing numbers of chemicals in complex environmental mixtures. However, interpreting the potential biological consequences of this analytical information remains a challenge. The effective integration of chemical and biological data is critical to understanding overall hazards and risks of complex contaminant mixtures. Over the past several years, we have been involved in a large collaborative effort, supported through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, to develop, and demonstrate the use of state-of-the-art approaches for integrating chemistry and biology for assessing complex mixtures of aquatic contaminants. As part of this, we have worked at a number of Great Lakes sites as case studies/demonstration projects. In this poster, we present data and results from studies conducted in 2012 and 2016 in the Maumee River (OH). These studies featured the collection of extensive analytical data for water samples, in conjunction with measurement of in vitro bioactivities, and appraisal of pathway-based molecular and biochemical measurements in tissues from caged fish (fathead minnows) deployed at different sites within the watershed. We were able to use the collected information in a complementary, integrated manner to establish how different non-point and point sources of contaminants could be affecting the system, and to generate hypotheses for more focused studies to assess specific ecological impacts of the chemical mixtures. The contents of this abstract neither constitute, nor necessarily reflect, official USEPA policy.