You are here:
BIOACCUMULATION AND AQUATIC SYSTEM SIMULATOR (BASS) USER'S MANUAL BETA TEST VERSION 2.1
Citation:
Barber, M C. BIOACCUMULATION AND AQUATIC SYSTEM SIMULATOR (BASS) USER'S MANUAL BETA TEST VERSION 2.1. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-01/035 (NTIS PB2001-108558), 2001.
Impact/Purpose:
This research project sets out to design and conduct an assessment of the long-term ecological consequences of alternative management choices. As the first project to be done at this scale using predictive ecological endpoints, we will seek to identify the appropriate components of such an analysis. We will use experience gained in the conduct of this BASE analysis to identify key research and data needs for address, to estimate timing, resource needs, etc., for future analyses. We will extend this analysis beyond previous and ongoing studies in two ways: by incorporating biological endpoints, primarily properties of fish communities, and by introducing the concept of sustainability of ecological state under future scenarios contrasted with the present state of those same ecological resources. Requirements that are identified during the course of this study will permit the recommendation of specific capabilities that should be incorporated in a general modeling system currently under development to support BASE and other environmental assessments. Finally, the analysis is intended to be of value for establishing environmental management choices that will be beneficial and those that would be detrimental to the sustainability of ecological resources of the Albemarle-Pamlico Basin.
Description:
BASS (Bioaccumulation and Aquatic System Simulator) is a Fortran 95 simulation program that predicts the population and bioaccumulation dynamics of age-structured fish assemblages that are exposed to hydrophobic organic pollutants and class B and borderline metals that complex with sulfhydryl groups (e.g., cadmium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, silver, and zinc). The model's bioaccumulation algorithms are based on diffusion kinetics and are coupled to a process-based model for the growth of individual fish. The model's exchange algorithms consider both biological attributes of fishes and physico-chemical properties of the chemicals
of concern that determine diffusive exchange across gill membranes and intestinal mucosa. Biological characteristics used by the model include the fish's gill morphometry, feeding and growth rate, and proximate composition (i.e., its fractional aqueous, lipid, and
structural organic content). Relevant physico-chemical properties are the chemical's aqueous diffusivity, n-octanol/water partition coefficient, and, for metals, binding coefficients to proteins and other organic matter. BASS simulates the growth of individual K ow
fish using a standard mass balance, bioenergetic model (i.e., growth = ingestion - egestion - respiration - specific dynamic action -excretion). A fish's realized ingestion is calculated from its maximum consumption rate adjusted for the availability of prey of the appropriate size and taxonomy. The community's food web is specified by defining one or more foraging classes for each fish species based on either its body weight, body length, or age. The dietary composition of each of these feeding classes is specified as a combination of benthos, incidental terrestrial insects, periphyton/attached algae, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and one or more fish
species. Population dynamics are generated by predatory mortalities defined by community's food web and standing stocks, size dependent physiological mortality rates, the maximum longevity of species, and toxicological responses to chemical exposures. The
model's temporal and spatial scales of resolution are a day and a hectare, respectively. Currently, BASS ignores the migration of fish into and out of the simulated hectare.