Assessing the cumulative exposure of wildlife to offshore wind energy development.

Governments and developers are pursuing offshore wind energy to address climate change, but multiple wind farms may cumulatively affect wildlife populations. Assessments of cumulative effects must first calculate the cumulative exposure of a wildlife population to a hazard and then estimate how the exposure will affect the population. Our research responds to the first need by developing a model designed to assess how different wind farm siting scenarios cumulatively expose wildlife.

Changes in mercury exposure of marine birds breeding in the Gulf of Maine, 2008-2013.

Mercury is a potent contaminant that can disrupt an organism's behavior and physiology, ultimately affecting reproductive success. Over the last 100 years, environmental deposition of anthropogenic sourced mercury has increased globally, particularly in the U.S.

Marine foraging birds as bioindicators of mercury in the Gulf of Maine.

From existing databases, we compiled and evaluated 604 total mercury (Hg) levels in the eggs and blood of 17 species of marine foraging birds from 35 Gulf of Maine islands to provide baseline data and to determine the best tissue, age class, and species for future biomonitoring. While mean Hg levels in most species did not exceed adverse effects thresholds, levels in some individual eggs did; for all species arithmetic mean egg Hg levels ranged from 0.04 to 0.

Developing a Cyberinfrastructure for integrated assessments of environmental contaminants.

The objective of this study was to design and implement prototype software for capturing field data and automating the process for reporting and analyzing the distribution of mercury. The four phase process used to design, develop, deploy and evaluate the prototype software is described. Two different development strategies were used: (1) design of a mobile data collection application intended to capture field data in a meaningful format and automate transfer into user databases, followed by (2) a re-engineering of the original software to develop an integrated database environment with improved methods for aggregating and sharing data.

Relating land cover characteristics and common loon mercury levels using geographic information systems.

This effort models the relationship between mercury (Hg) levels in the common loon (Gavia immer) and land cover types as defined by the National Land Cover Database (NLCD). We constructed the model within the framework of a GIS to analyze the spatial relationships between land cover types and blood Hg levels in male common loons. Thiessan polygons were used to generate the territory for each loon.

Patterns and interpretation of mercury exposure in freshwater avian communities in northeastern north America.

A large data set of over 4,700 records of avian mercury (Hg) levels in northeastern North America was compiled and evaluated. As Hg emissions remain poorly regulated in the United States and Canada, atmospheric deposition patterns and associated ecological responses continue to elicit interest by landscape managers, conservation biologists, policy makers, and the general public. How avian Hg exposure is interpreted greatly influences decision-making practices.

Mercury in freshwater fish of northeast North America--a geographic perspective based on fish tissue monitoring databases.

As part of an initiative to assemble and synthesize mercury (Hg) data from environmental matrices across northeastern North America, we analyzed a large dataset comprised of 15,305 records of fish tissue Hg data from 24 studies from New York State to Newfoundland. These data were summarized to provide mean Hg concentrations for 40 fish species and associated families. Detailed analyses were carried out using data for 13 species.