Two Congener-specific Models Estimate PCB TEQ Hazard to American Mink (Neovison vison) Living near a Western New York Creek.

We present two models to monitor the health of ecosystems by assessing hazard from a persistent organic compound to a top predator species. Our diet model predicts the dietary exposure of American Mink (Neovison vison) to PCB toxic equivalents (TEQ) by combining concentrations in their prey using weighted average proportions consistent with literature-based mink diets. Our bioaccumulation model predicts the dietary exposure of mink to PCB TEQ based on each congener's total concentration in water (dissolved plus particulate fractions), the octanal/water partition coefficient (log K) of the compound, and the trophic levels of prey taxa. Both models predict mink dietary concentrations which can be directly compared with each other and with lowest observable adverse effects concentrations (LOAECs) to assess chronic and acute hazards of PCB TEQ to mink. By our choice of certain parameters in the bioaccumulation model, we forced it to match the diet model within less than 5% for Eighteenmile Creek in western New York State. When the two models were used for a similar creek about 25 km away, the differences in their predictions were of the same magnitude.