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NHEERL on the Road
Crystal City, VA
NHEERL Scientists Lead and Participate in Risk Assessment Forum Workshop on Population-Level Ecological Risk Assessment
The choice of levels of biological organization reflected in assessment end points in ecological risk assessment (ERA) is receiving increasing attention. Most ERAs conducted for chemicals by EPA and, indeed, by most organizations worldwide, focus on organism-level entities and attributes (e.g., rainbow trout survival, growth, or reproduction) as assessment end points. These end points are practical because they often can be estimated through toxicological testing and other means and are expedient because they commonly are presumed to provide protection of population-level attributes (e.g., population abundance and persistence). Risk to populations only occasionally has been evaluated directly by EPA, yet many consider populations to be a fundamental ecological unit for protection. This situation results from several factors affecting assessment planning, including the perceived relationships between assessment end points and environmental management goals; historical precedence; and, importantly, the lack of recognized consensus and guidance about how such assessments should be performed.
EPA's Risk Assessment Forum organized a technical workshop to consider whether the current state of the knowledge and science underlying population-level ecological risk assessment is sufficient to develop guidance and, if so, to help identify key actions needed to produce such guidance. Reflecting the leadership of NHEERL's population ecologists and the Wildlife Research Program, several NHEERL scientists participated in this workshop held in Crystal City, VA, June 16-18, 2008, including Diane Nacci (who led a workgroup), Jason Grear and Glen Thursby of the Atlantic Ecology Division (AED), Sandy Raimondo of the Gulf Ecology Division, and Rick Bennett of the Mid-continent Ecology Division. Additional experts in population ecology, ecological risk assessment, and risk management participated from other Federal, academic, and private sector organizations with stakes in population risk. The workshop was chaired by Wayne Munns of AED.