Programs
Department of Environmental & Aquatic Animal Health - Research
Programs & Projects
Ecotoxicology
Introduction
Ecotoxicology is the extension of classic toxicology to include effects to ecological entities such as individual animals or plants, populations, communities, ecosystems, landscapes, and the entire biosphere. It is the science of contaminants in the biosphere and their effects on constituents of the biosphere, including humans.
Research
Developing models (Quantitative Ion Character-Activity Relationships or QICARs) that predict metal toxicity based on metal ion-ligand binding chemistry.
Improving current methods of predicting lethal effects by applying time-to-event methods. This approach allows both exposure duration and intensity (concentration or dose) to be fully included in predictions of effect.
Improving methods currently used in ecotoxicology for measuring bioavailability.
Challenging the current explanation for the probit method (log normal model) as applied in ecotoxicology.
Generating trophic transfer-based models of mercury movement in aquatic and terrestrial environments.
Improving environmental decisions by inclusion of Bayesian inference and exclusion of invalid, classical statistical methods.
Principal investigator
Courses
MS560: Fundamentals of Ecotoxicology (FALL, 3 credits). An introduction to ecotoxicology as a science with consideration also of technical and regulatory themes. Topics are discussed from the molecular to biospheric scale with emphasis being placed on scientific, not regulatory, issues.
MS640: Quantitative Ecotoxicology (SPRING, 4 credits). Essential ecotoxicological principles and quantitative methods for the analysis of ecotoxicological data. Laboratory exercises will include method applications with PC-based software. Emphasis will be placed on the scientific and statistical soundness of techniques.