Applying Ecological Risk Assessment to Environmental Accidents: Harlequin Ducks and the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Wiens, John A.

doi:10.1641/b570909

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…This will require some understanding not only of the uncertainty associated with projections or with actions and their outcomes, but also of the risks, costs, and benefits of alternative actions. This is the domain of ecological risk assessment (83,84); there may be real value in integrating the formalisms of risk assessment with the projections of SDMs. In the end, determining how well conservation or management actions are working and whether the uncertainties include unforeseen factors that must be incorporated into the management equation requires targeted monitoring.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Niches, models, and climate change: Assessing the assumptions and uncertainties

Wiens

Stralberg

Jongsomjit

et al. 2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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As the rate and magnitude of climate change accelerate, understanding the consequences becomes increasingly important. Species distribution models (SDMs) based on current ecological niche constraints are used to project future species distributions. These models contain assumptions that add to the uncertainty in model projections stemming from the structure of the models, the algorithms used to translate niche associations into distributional probabilities, the quality and quantity of data, and mismatches between the scales of modeling and data. We illustrate the application of SDMs using two climate models and two distributional algorithms, together with information on distributional shifts in vegetation types, to project fine-scale future distributions of 60 California landbird species. Most species are projected to decrease in distribution by 2070. Changes in total species richness vary over the state, with large losses of species in some ''hotspots'' of vulnerability. Differences in distributional shifts among species will change species co-occurrences, creating spatial variation in similarities between current and future assemblages. We use these analyses to consider how assumptions can be addressed and uncertainties reduced. SDMs can provide a useful way to incorporate future conditions into conservation and management practices and decisions, but the uncertainties of model projections must be balanced with the risks of taking the wrong actions or the costs of inaction. Doing this will require that the sources and magnitudes of uncertainty are documented, and that conservationists and resource managers be willing to act despite the uncertainties. The alternative, of ignoring the future, is not an option.birds ͉ California ͉ ecological niche ͉ species distribution models ͉ conservation

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Niches, models, and climate change: Assessing the assumptions and uncertainties

Wiens

Stralberg

Jongsomjit

et al. 2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

787

644

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“…Seabirds are one of the most affected organisms in large oil spills, but their demographic effects are difficult to understand without long‐term monitoring of marked individuals (Wiens , Votier et al. ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complex demographic heterogeneity from anthropogenic impacts in a coastal marine predator

Oró

Álvarez

Velando

2018

Ecological Applications

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Environmental drivers, including anthropogenic impacts, affect vital rates of organisms. Nevertheless, the influence of these drivers may depend on the physical features of the habitat and how they affect life history strategies depending on individual covariates such as age and sex. Here, the long-term monitoring (1994-2014) of marked European Shags in eight colonies in two regions with different ecological features, such as foraging habitat, allowed us to test several biological hypotheses about how survival changes by age and sex in each region by means of multi-event capture-recapture modeling. Impacts included fishing practices and bycatch, invasive introduced carnivores and the severe Prestige oil spill. Adult survival was constant but, unexpectedly, it was different between sexes. This difference was opposite in each region. The impact of the oil spill on survival was important only for adults (especially for females) in one region and lasted a single year. Juvenile survival was time dependent but this variability was not synchronized between regions, suggesting a strong signal of regional environmental variability. Mortality due to bycatch was also different between sex, age and region. Interestingly the results showed that the size of the fishing fleet is not necessarily a good proxy for assessing the impact of bycatch mortality, which may be more dependent on the fishing grounds and the fishing gears employed in each season of the year. Anthropogenic impacts affected survival differently by age and sex, which was expected for a long-lived organism with sexual size dimorphism. Strikingly, these differences varied depending on the region, indicating that habitat heterogeneity is demographically important to how environmental variability (including anthropogenic impacts) and resilience influence population dynamics.

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“…In contrast to those assertions, Wiens et al (2004) concluded that any population-level effect may be explained more readily by differences in habitats between the oiled sites in western PWS and the unoiled sites on Montague Island that were used for comparisons. Moreover, in a qualitative assessment of the plausibility of current risks from remnant EVO, Wiens (2007) concluded that it is highly unlikely that the spill currently has continuing effects on Harlequin Ducks through ingestion of hydrocarbon-contaminated mussels in spill-affected shorelines of PWS.…”

Section: Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A qualitative ecological risk assessment of the potential continuing effects on Harlequin Ducks from EVOS (Wiens 2007) discussed sources of variability in the PWS environment that might affect the seaducks; differences between presence of individual-level biomarkers, such as the CYP1A activity, and effects on populations; and difficulties in defining and assessing recovery, particularly in the presence of uncertainty. Wiens (2007) concluded that the likelihood of continuing effects from EVOS on the PWS Harlequin Duck population seemed remote.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%