Summary

Description

The Biomonitoring of Environmental Status and Trends (BEST) program of the Department of Interior is focused to identify and understand effects of contaminant stressors on biological resources under their stewardship. In accordance with the desire of many to continuously monitor the environmental health of our estuaries, much can be learned by summarizing existing temporal, geographic, and phylogenetic contaminant information. To this end, retrospective contamiant exposure and effects data for amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals residing within 30 km. of the Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific, Alaskan, and Hawaiian coastal estuaries are being assembled through searches of published literature (e.g., Fish and Wildlife Review; BIOSIS) and databases (e.g., US EPA Ecological Incident Information System; USGS Diagnostic and Epizootic Databases), and compilation of summary data from unpublished reports of government natural resource agencies, private conservation groups, and universities. These contaminant vertebrates (CEE-TV) are being summarized using ACCESS in a 120 field format including species, collection time and site coordinates, sample matrix, contaminant concentration, biomarker and bioindicator responses, and source of information. This CEE-TV database (>11,000 records) has been imported into the ARC/INFO geographic information system (GIS), for purposes of examining geographic coverage and trends, and to identify critical data gaps. A preliminary risk assessment has been conducted to identify and characterize contaminants and other stressors potentially affecting terrestrial vertebrates that reside, migrate through or reproduce in these estuaries.