Development of Species Sensitivity Distributions for Wildlife using Interspecies Toxicity Correlation Models

Abstract

Species sensitivity distributions (SSD) are probability distributions of chemical toxicity of multiple species and have had limited application in wildlife risk assessment because of relatively small data sets of wildlife toxicity values. Interspecies correlation estimation (ICE) models predict the acute toxicity to untested taxa from known toxicity of a single surrogate species. ICE models were used to predict toxicity values to wildlife species and generate SSDs for 23 chemicals using four avian surrogates. The hazard levels associated with the fifth percentile of the distribution (HD5) were compared for ICE SSDs and independent SSDs created with measured data. SSDs were composed of either avian only or avian and mammalian taxa. ICE HD5s were within 5-fold of 90% of measured HD5s and were generally higher than measured HD5s. The first percentile of the distribution (HD1) and the fifth percentile of the lower confidence limit (HDL) of ICE SSDs produced values that were not significantly different from measured HD5s. Using a bird surrogate to predicttoxicity to birds and the Norway rat to predict toxicity to mammals improved some estimates of ICE HD5s compared with those generated using only bird surrogates. These results indicate that ICE models can be used to generate SSDs comparable to those derived from measured wildlife toxicity data and provide robust estimates of the HD5.

Phylogenetic signal in amphibian sensitivity to copper sulfate relative to experimental temperature

“…Some efforts to extrapolate chemical sensitivity among species have already been made using species sensitivity distributions (SSDs; e.g., Awkerman et al 2008, Raimondo et al 2013) and interspecies correlation estimation (ICE; Raimondo et al 2010). ICE relies on pairwise comparisons of toxicity data for multiple chemicals (Raimondo et al 2010), and the results of this approach indicate that toxicity predictions are more accurate for more closely related species (Raimondo et al 2010).…”

Aquatic predicted no‐effect‐concentration derivation for perfluorooctane sulfonic acid

“…Moreover, if acute toxicity data for the different taxonomic species can be obtained by predictive models, PNECs can also be derived for chemicals with limited measured toxicity data. Recently, interspecies correlation estimation (ICE) statistical models have been developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) as an attractive additional approach to estimate acute toxicity values from a single known toxicity value [19][20][21]. Based on acute toxicity values from surrogate species, the ICE model is a loglog correlation of multiple chemical toxicity values for a pair of species that can predict the toxicity of multiple species [22,23].…”

Toxicity Reference Values and Tissue Residue Criteria for Protecting Avian Wildlife Exposed to Methylmercury in China

“…A speci fi ed effect level, such as the proportion of species expected to respond to a particular exposure for a speci fi c measurement endpoint, can be determined so that most species are protected. SSDs have been used to assess risk and develop water quality criteria for aquatic species (Caldwell et al 2008 ;Schuler et al 2008 ) , but have had limited application for wildlife because of the dearth of toxicity data for wildlife (Awkerman et al 2008 ) . In some studies, SSDs have been used to derive quality criteria to protect top predators from residues in soils Traas et al 1996 ) .…”

“…In some studies, SSDs have been used to derive quality criteria to protect top predators from residues in soils Traas et al 1996 ) . By incorporating interspecies toxicity correlation models, SSDs were developed for wildlife from toxicity data on 23 chemicals (Awkerman et al 2008 ) . SSDs created for 15 or more wildlife species could give accurate results, whereas data for approximately 7 species can be used to provide only an adequate estimate for some combinations of chemicals and species (Awkerman et al 2008 ) .…”

“…By incorporating interspecies toxicity correlation models, SSDs were developed for wildlife from toxicity data on 23 chemicals (Awkerman et al 2008 ) . SSDs created for 15 or more wildlife species could give accurate results, whereas data for approximately 7 species can be used to provide only an adequate estimate for some combinations of chemicals and species (Awkerman et al 2008 ) . In the present study, information for ten species was used to construct the SSD for MeHg, with the log-normal function providing an accepted fi t to the distribution, which was tested by use of the Anderson-Darling and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests.…”