| Summary: | The Biomonitoring of Environmental Status and Trends (BEST) program is designed to assess and monitor the effects of environmental contaminants on biological resources, particularly those under the stewardship of the Department of the Interior. BEST examines contaminant issues at national, regional, and local scales, and uses field monitoring techniques and information assessment tools tailored to each scale. As part of this program, the threat of contaminants and other anthropogenic activities to terrestrial vertebrates residing in or near to Atlantic coast estuarine ecosystems is being evaluated by data synthesis and field activities. One of the objectives of this project is to evaluate the relative sensitivity and suitability of various wildlife species for regional contaminant monitoring of estuaries and ecological risk assessment.
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