Wildlife Risk Assessment

The NHEERL Wildlife Research Strategy provides a conceptual model for integrating wildlife toxicology, population biology, and landscape ecology to address the critical research needs identified by the ORD multi-year planning process. The focus of the research strategy is effects on wildlife, in particular birds, amphibians and mammals. Historically, ORD's ecological research has dealt predominately with aquatic biota and, to a lesser degree, terrestrial vegetation, as the basis for defining water and air quality criteria authorized under the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts. The present focus on wildlife is designed to build on approaches previously developed for aquatic biota. Tests of new models and hypotheses will incorporate both wildlife and aquatic biota to ensure that the approaches developed are robust across taxa and ecosystem types.

The assessment endpoint entity in this research is the population, that is, the abundance (numbers, biomass) and long-term viability of a given species within a defined geographic area. Other assessment endpoint entities (e.g., at the individual or community level) may be appropriate for some wildlife risk assessments. NHEERL research focuses on population-level effects, however, because they represent ecologically and legislatively important endpoints of concern as expressed, for example, in the Great Lakes Water Quality Initiative and the Endangered Species Act. While mortality or injury of individuals (e.g., malformations) may cause concern, a more important question ecologically is whether these individual losses affect population growth and viability. Furthermore, information on population-level responses represents an important stepping stone to improved understanding of community-level responses.

In addition to chemical stressors in the environment, wildlife populations are impacted by many other stressors resulting directly or indirectly from human activities (e.g., habitat loss and alterations, introduced species, harvesting pressures). The sensitivity of a population to a given contaminant, as well as the ecological significance of a contaminant effect, is influenced by these other stressors. Thus, an important aspect of this research strategy is to develop approaches for assessing risks of contaminants within this broader context. This strategy deals explicitly with the combined effects of contaminants and habitat alteration on wildlife populations. Other types of stressors (e.g., introduced species, direct human disturbance) could also be readily incorporated into the framework and models, but are not the subject of focused attention in the near term.

Projects involving AED's ecological effects research to support development of scientifically sound wildlife risk assessment methods include:

Contact: Wayne Munns

Wildlife Risk Assessment

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