PREDICTING STRESSOR IMPACTS ACROSS LEVELS OF BIOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION

We are developing modeling approaches that mechanistically link the impacts of toxic chemicals and other stressors across levels of biological organization. Whereas it is increasingly feasible to generate huge amounts of data on the effects of chemicals at various levels of biological organization, the consequences of such effects for things we care about (e.g., persistence of populations, ecosystem service delivery) are rarely straightforward.  This is where modeling can help.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• How do stressor-caused changes in survival, growth and reproduction translate into impacts on population dynamics, and how are these relationships influenced by life history?
• How do data gaps and other uncertainties affect our ability to predict the impacts of stressors from lower- to higher levels of biological organization and how can these be addressed?
• To what extent can using an ecosystem services framework improve ecological risk assessment and environmental management?