Template for AGand Committee Annual/Semi-Annual Report
AG/Committee Name: Ecotoxicology of Amphibians and Reptiles Global Advisory Group (EARAG)
Submitted by: Jamie BaconDate:November 3, 2013
SETAC World Council/Board Liaison: Douglas Fort
Organization
This Advisory group exists to serve as a scientific resource to all stakeholders interested in the ecotoxicology of amphibians and reptiles. It will serve as a focal point within SETAC as a means of involving the membership in research and discussions. At present, there is a global steering committee comprised of twelve people from academia, industry, and government.
Activities Summary
A platform session entitled “Amphibian and Reptile Ecotoxicology” took place at the SETAC North America 33rd Annual Meeting held in Long Beach in November, 2012. A total of eight platform presentations were given. Three presentations focused on pesticide exposure and/or effects in amphibians, two reported on the effects of copper in Southern Toads, one reported on the relative importance of diet and dermal exposure contaminant exposure in Western Fence Lizards, one reported on optimization of cytochrome P450 catalytic analyses in chorioallantoic membranes for use in alkoxyresorufin O-dealkylation (AROD) assays in Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles, and one reported on the use of cytotoxicity assays to assess adverse effects of PFOA in sea turtles.
A platform and poster session entitled “Needs and Challenges for Protecting Amphibians and Reptiles from the Impact of Environmental Pollutants” were held at the SETAC Europe 23rd Annual Meeting in Glasgow in May, 2013. A total of six platform presentations were given and there were fifteen posters presented. Of particular interest was the platform presentation entitled “Comparative acute and chronic sensitivity of fish and amphibians: a critical review of data” as this related to the activities of the recently formed EARAG Ecological Risk Assessment subcommittee.
A platform and poster session entitled “Amphibian and Reptile Ecotoxicology: Progress and Challenges in Understanding Chemical Effects, Exposure, and Risk” has been organized for the SETAC North America 34th Annual Meeting to be held in Nashville in November, 2013. Seven platform presentations and seven posters are scheduled to be presented.
Coordination with Other Advisory Groups and Committees
Chris Salice, chair of the EARAG Ecological Risk Assessment subcommittee, is also EARAG’s liaison with the Ecological Risk Assessment Global Advisory Group. In addition, Christine Bishop is EARAG’s liaison to the SETAC Science Committee.
Future Plans
A session on the Ecotoxicology of Amphibians and Reptiles is being planned for the Joint SETAC Asia/Pacific and Australasia 2014 Conference. This session will be jointly chaired by Reinier Mann and NoppadonKitana.
Business and Planning Meetings
A business meeting was held at the SETAC North America Long Beach conference. As the EARAG has identified the need to include reptiles and amphibians in risk assessments, Mary Sorenson, Chair of the Global Advisory Group on Ecological Risk Assessments (ERAAG), gave a brief presentation on that groups activities and how both the ERAAG and EARAG could benefit from collaboration. As a result, Chris Salice volunteered to chair an EARAG subcommittee to liaison with ERRAG.
A business meeting was also held at the SETAC Europe Glasgow conference. Manuel Ortiz-Santaliestra presented a description of the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA’s) program to review the European guidance documents for determining the ecotoxicology of chemicals to aquatic and terrestrial species. He said that these guidelines are now to include information on testing chemicals on amphibians and reptiles, and that the draft guidelines for aquatic species are due to be released in 2014. Therefore, he said, if the AG wanted to provide input into the formulation of these guidelines, this needed to be accomplished in the near future. He also mentioned the new EU Regulations on Active Ingredient (Reg. EC 283/2013) and Plant Protection Product (Reg. EC 284/2013) requirements, which include mandatory risk assessment for reptiles and terrestrial stages of amphibian. The Regulations are dated on March 1st 2013 and entered into force on April 23rd 2013, with the exception of products whose approval expires before January 1st 2016 (in these cases, the Regulation enters into force on January 1st 2014).
Chris Salice, Co-Chair of the EARAG Ecological Risk Assessment subcommittee, gave an update on the status of the subcommittee. He said that he had just acquired two co-chairs to assist him and he invited interested members to join the subcommittee and help plot the way forward. The attendees then discussed the US EPA’s draft guidance document, whose comment period had recently ended, which states that rainbow trout are sufficient in sensitivity to predict acute risks to the aquatic stages of amphibians. It was suggested that the first objective of the subcommittee might be to put out a document that discusses whether fish adequately represent amphibians in acute and chronic toxicity tests. The subcommittee has been working on a white paper on the topic since the Glasgow meeting and will provide an update at the Nashville EARAG business meeting.
Membership Communications
We discovered that if an EARAG member has not selected to receive emails notifying them of new messages, messages sent out via the AG group’s page may go undetected. We have since opted to select ‘email all group members’ as the best option to use to communicate with the entire AG membership.
Issues/Problems
None.
Current Steering Committee
Geographical Unit / name / Sector / Affiliation / Term EndsNorth America
Jamie Bacon, Chair / NGO/Government / Bermuda Zoological Society, Bermuda / 2015
Christine Bishop, Past Chair / Government / Environment Canada, Canada / 2015
Don Sparling / Academia / Southern Illinois University, US / 2014
Kym Rouse Campbell / Industry / ENVIRON International Corp., Canada / 2015
Sarah Webb / Academia / Texas Tech University, US / 2015
Scott Weir / Academia / Texas Tech University, US / 2014
Asia/Pacific
Reinier Mann / Government / Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Sciences, Queensland, Australia / 2015
NoppadonKitana / Academia / Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand / 2016
Europe
Manuel E. Ortiz Santaliestra, Vice Chair / Academia / Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Cuidad Real, Spain / 2016
Tina Grimm / Industry / RIFCON GmbH, Hirschberg, Germany / 2016
Peter Sowig / Industry / Bayer Cropscience, Frankfurt, Germany / 2016
Peter Dohmen / Industry / BASF – The Chemical Company, Limburgerhof, Germany / 2015
Number of active EARAG members: 65
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