HR: 13:45h
AN: NB43B-02 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Mixture Toxicity and Habitat Alterations Attributed to Effects on Species Composition of Fish in Ohio Rivers
AU: * de Zwart, D
EM: d.de.zwart@rivm.nl
AF: National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), PO Box 1, Bilthoven, NL-3720 BA Netherlands
AU: Posthuma, L
EM: l.posthuma@rivm.nl
AF: National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), PO Box 1, Bilthoven, NL-3720 BA Netherlands
AU: Dyer, S D
EM: dyer.sd@pg.com
AF: The Procter & Gamble Company, PO BOX 5555, Cincinnati, OH 45201-5555 United States
AU: Hawkins, C P
EM: chuck.hawkins@usu.edu
AF: Utah State University, Department of Aquatic, Watershed, and Earth Resources, College of Natural Resources, Logan, UT 84322-5210 United States
AB: Biological assessments should both estimate the condition of a biological resource (magnitude of alteration) and provide managers with a diagnosis of the potential causes of any observed impairment. Although methods of quantifying condition are well developed, identifying and proportionately attributing causes of impairment remains problematic. To address this need, we developed a conceptual approach that 1) links fish, habitat, and chemistry data from hundreds of sites collected in Ohio streams, 2) assesses the biological condition at each site, 3) attributes impairment to multiple probable causes and 4) provides the results of the analyses in simple to interpret pie charts. Biological condition was assessed using a RIVPACS-like predictive model. Impaired biological condition was defined as the ratio of the number of observed native species to the probabilities of capture generated by the model. The potential toxic effects of exposure to mixtures of contaminants were estimated using Species Sensitivity Distributions and mixture toxicity principles. Generalized linear regression models described the relationship of species abundance as a function of habitat characteristics. Statistically linking the biological condition, mixture effects and species abundance provided the opportunity to evaluate the losses of species with environmental conditions.
DE: 0400 Biogeosciences
SC: North American Benthological Society [NB]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly