Contaminant Exposure and Effects - Terrestrial Vertebrates

The Biomonitoring of Environmental Status and Trends (BEST) program of the
Department of the 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Databases), and compilation of summary data from unpublished reports of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.

The purpose of the Contaminant Exposure and Effects--Terrestrial Vertebrates
(CEE-TV) Database is to provide a summary of known contaminant exposure and
effects in terrestrial vertebrates in coastal and estuarine habitat.

Data Set Credit goes to Jennifer Pearson, Nancy Golden, Lynda Garrett, Jonathan
Cohen, Karen Eisenreich, Elise Larsen, Rebecca Kershnar, Roger Hothem.