Funding Program:
Fisheries: Aquatic and Endangered Resources
Statement of Problem: Multiple environmental variables impinge upon natural populations and may result in injury to organisms and their populations when these exceed the organisms capacity to adapt. The problem for resource managers is in identifying those stressors that lead to injury in order that effective management strategies can be developed. Because of the complex interactions that can occur among environmental variables, new methods including risk assement techniques are necesssary in order to facilitate the assessment of multiple stressors in natural habitats. The purpose of this project is to develop, validate and apply methods for assessing the interactive influences of environmental stressors on aquatic organisms and amphibians. This research focuses on understanding the synergistic and antagonistic interaction of environmental variables on survival, development, and productivity and to apply these assessments in the field for populations at risk.
Objectives: Determine sensitivity of amphibians and aquatic organisms to ultraviolet radiation and biotic and environmental factors that heightened or mitigate the risk of injury; Clients/partners: FS, EPA. Determine interactive effects of ultraviolet radiation with chemical substances including forest and range management chemicals. Clients/partners FS, FWS, EPA Determine environmental variables responsible for the decline and deformity of amphibians and aquatic organisms. Clients/partners:EPA Develop methods and strategies for assessing multiple stressors in natural habitats and determining causal relationships between stressor and injury to the biota.