Conservation of Marine Biodiversity and Resources

Health of coastal communities-

An increasingly diverse array of toxic pollutants with uncertain ecological effects is being discharged into coastal waters, and detecting their impacts on the condition of productive wetlands is one of the most important and difficult challenges facing environmental managers. In response, we established the West Coast EPA center to develop the next generation of ecological indicators for the rapid, practical assessment of wetland condition (See PEEIR). One main approach for assessing habitat condition and diagnosing stressors was to link the bioavailabilty of contaminants with effects on resident sentinel species from the molecular to the population level of biological organization. My laboratory demonstrated that 1) crabs are effective indicators of habitat condition at both large and small spatial scales, 2) seven measures of reproductive impairment all accurately identified the most highly contaminated areas, 3) reproductive impairment was a more sensitive measure of contaminant exposure than were traditional population surveys, 4) resident crabs and their embryos accumulated pollutants in time and space and provided a more accurate assessment of contaminant concentrations with less time and effort than did analytical surveys of chemical contaminants in sediments and 5) contaminant burdens were linked to the activation of metallothinein, P450 detoxifying enzymes and the prevalence of developmental abnormalities. This stressor-specific, vertically linked approach can be used by single investigators and state agencies to measure effects in resident species at both small and large spatial scales rather than extrapolating from toxicity test organisms, and it can diagnose stress and provide early warning signs of threats to habitat condition while providing a rapid assessment of the condition of intact and restored habitats. Having a mechanistic understanding of the vertical linkage between contaminant exposure and multiple measures of reproductive impairment greatly improved the transferability of this approach to new locales with complex suites of contaminants. Funding has been obtained from the National Park Service to apply this approach to determining the effects of pollutants on open coast communities.

Anderson, S. L., G. N. Cherr, S. G.  Morgan, C. A. Vines, R. M.  Higashi, W. A. Bennett, W. L. Rose, A. Brooks and R. M. Nisbet. 2006. Integrating contaminant responses in indicator saltmarsh species. Marine Environmental Research 62: S317-S321.

Morgan, S. G., S. A. Spilseth, H. M. Page, A. J. Brooks and E. D. Grosholz. 2006. Spatial and temporal movement of the lined shore crab Pachygrapsus crassipes in salt marshes and its utility as an indicator of habitat condition. Marine Ecology Progress Series 314:271-281

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