| | Accession Number | 5001776 |
| | Title | Applying a bioassessment and monitoring framework for public lands and trust |
| | resources in coastal and estuarine habitats of the United States |
| | Project Description | The Biomonitoring of Environmental Status and Trends (BEST) program is designed to assess and |
| | monitor the effects of environmental contaminants on biological resources, particularly those |
| | under the stewardship of the Department of the Interior. As part of this program, the threat of |
| | contaminants and other anthropogenic activities to terrestrial vertebrates residing in or near |
| | Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf, and Great Lakes estuarine and coastal ecosystems is being evaluated by |
| | data synthesis and field activities. An interdisciplinary multi-Center project has been initiated that |
| | will summarize extant contaminant exposure and effects data for terrestrial vertebrates inhabiting |
| | estuarine and coastal habitat along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, |
| | Hawaii, and in the Great Lakes. This information will be maintained in the Contaminant Exposure |
| | and Effects-- Terrestrial Vertebrates (CEE-TV) database and the Biological and Ecotoxicological |
| | Characteristics of Terrestrial Vertebrate Species Residing in Estuaries that are currently |
| | accessible on the World Wide Web. These data will be analyzed using descriptive and exploratory |
| | statistical methods to determine differences in the number of records, concentrations of |
| | contaminants detected, and measures of contaminant exposure and effects among species, |
| | states, estuaries, and broad geographic regions. Temporal trends and apparent data gaps (by |
| | estuarine and coastal habitat, state, and Department of the Interior properties) will be identified. |
| | Watersheds will be ranked on the basis of the density of ecotoxicological data and on indices of |
| | watershed condition, vulnerability to pollution, and potential for management activities that mitigate |
| | contaminant effects on wildlife. In addition, information is being compiled on the biomonitoring |
| | utility and contaminant vulnerability of many terrestrial vertebrates species commonly found in |
| | estuarine and coastal habitat. The data generated from this project will enable natural resource |
| | managers, scientists and the public to better implement various research, management, and |
| | conservation programs. |
| | Keywords | amphibians, birds, contaminants, ecotoxicology, gis, information transfer, mammals, methods |
| | development, monitoring, reptiles, status and trends, |
| | Principal | Barnett A Rattner, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center: barnerr_rattner@usgs.gov; Roger L |
| | Investigators | Hothem, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center: roger_hothem@usgs.gov; Thomas W Custer, |
| | Upper Mississippi Science Center: thomas_custer@usgs.gov; |
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