excellence in ecotoxicology, data review, and risk assessment

Providing consulting services to assist with ecotoxicity test data review, risk assessment, and regulatory compliance

Invertebrates serve as important sentinels

Invertebrate animals constitute 95+% of animal species and are integral and essential constituents in all ecological systems.  Many provide economic benefits beyond their ecological services such as food items, pollinating services, dyes, fabrics, and so much more.  However, others are economic pests or disease vectors.  Therefore, invertebrate toxicology is important to protect valuable species and ecosystems, and to control pest populations.  Invertebrate toxicity assays may be useful in predicting or indicating potential toxicity in vertebrates, in part because some invertebrates can be more readily manipulated than vertebrate systems. In this capacity, invertebrates may serve either as sentinels of potential effects from exposure to conditions or chemicals, or as actual predictors of effects that share a relevant toxicological  mechanism or pathway.   Their small size and short life-cycles are also advantages for this purpose.

Avian toxicology

Birds are among the most charismatic animal species and serve essential ecological roles  The importance of birds from ecological and economic perspectives cannot be overstated.  As canaries in the mine so aptly illustrate, birds are good sentinels for environmental contamination or toxic risks to human health.  In contrast to this high importance, birds are inexplicably underrepresented in toxicological research and government support.  The US-EPA does not sustain any in-house wildlife toxicology research programs, but supports extensive aquatic and computational toxicology programs.  Therefore, the challenge in assessing risks to avian fauna requires good understanding of the unique characteristics of avian physiology/behavior  and additional effort to assess potential risks to these sensitive and valuable species.

Approaches to risk assessment

a) Integrated risk assessment approaches utilize probabilistic tools that include both the probability of exposure and magnitude of effects

b) Predictive risk assessments make use of tiered modeling and focused laboratory studies for refined risk assessment.

c) Mitigation measures suggested must provide meaningful ecological risk reduction, be pragmatic and achievable, and consider the need for timely decisions and cost-effective utilization of financial and human resources.

d) Make use of watershed/holistic approaches for risk assessment and risk management  that incorporate “landscape factors” to completer probabilistic assessments that better inform risk management decisions.

Assessments strive to provide a basic understanding of the scientific components of the risk assessment  to facilitate effective decisions.