EPA EcoBox Tools - Exposure Factors

EPA’s Wildlife Exposure Factors Handbook (Wildlife EFH) provides information on various factors used to assess exposure to wildlife. These values are based on a 1990 literature search, supplemented by targeted searches conducted in 1992. Volume I summarizes literature values for exposure factors for 34 species of birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. Common equations used to estimate exposure to wildlife receptors are also described in Volume I. Volume II is the literature review database that accompanies the selected species profiles provided in Chapter 2 of Volume I. The Wildlife EFH provides both guidance and data to facilitate estimating wildlife exposure to contaminants in the environment (U.S. EPA, 1993).

The Wildlife EFH focuses on selected groups of mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles that include the following (U.S. EPA, 1993):

• Mammals—short-tailed shrew, red fox, raccoon, mink, river otter, harbor seal, deer mouse, prairie vole, meadow vole, muskrat, eastern cottontail
• Birds—great blue heron, Canada goose, mallard, lesser scaup, osprey, red-tailed hawk, bald eagle, American kestrel, northern bobwhite, American woodcock, spotted sandpiper, herring gull, belted kingfisher, marsh wren, American robin
• Amphibians and reptiles—snapping turtle, painted turtle, eastern box turtle, racer, northern water snake, eastern newt, green frog, bullfrog

Fish and aquatic or terrestrial invertebrates are not included in Wildlife EFH. Profiles on amphibians and reptiles are, in general, less developed than those for birds and mammals. Methods for assessing exposure to birds and mammals are more common and well developed (U.S. EPA, 1993).

Chapter 2 of the Wildlife EFH presents exposure profiles for the selected species along with brief descriptions of their natural history. Each species profile includes an introduction to the species' general taxonomic group, qualitative description of the species, list of similar species, and table of exposure factors. Wildlife exposure factors in the Wildlife EFH include:

• Normalizing factors (body weight, growth rate, metabolic rate);
• Contact rates (food ingestion rate, dietary composition, water ingestion rate, soil/sediment intake rate, inhalation rate, dermal surface area);
• Population dynamics (social organization, home range size, population density, annual fecundity, age at sexual maturity, annual mortality rates, average longevity); and
• Seasonal activities (mating season, parturition/hatching, molt/metamorphosis, dispersal/migration/hibernation).

See the table below for additional details on the receptor-group-specific exposure parameter values presented in Chapter 2 of the Wildlife EFH Volume I.

Chapter 3 of the Wildlife EFH Volume I provides allometric equations that can be used to estimate exposure parameter values—on the basis of animal body weight— for species for which measured values are not available. Empirically-derived allometric equations are provided that relate food ingestion rates, water intake rates, inhalation rates, surface area, and metabolic rate to body weight (U.S. EPA, 1993). The taxonomic relationship between the known species and the one of interest is important to understand. The closer they are related—considering uptake, metabolism, depuration of a chemical—the more likely toxic responses will be similar (U.S. EPA, 1998).

Chapter 4 in Volume I describes common equations used to estimate wildlife exposure to environmental contaminants. Included are methods for estimating diet-specific food ingestion rates on the basis of metabolic rate and for estimating exposure to contaminants in soil and sediment.

The Wildlife EFH might be used as a framework to guide development of exposure factors and assessments for species of concern in a risk assessment. Species selection criteria for site-specific risk assessments will vary and might consider the following: species that play important roles in community structure or function (e.g., top predators or major herbivores); diet, habitat preferences, and behaviors that make the species likely to contact the stressor; species from different taxa that might exhibit different toxic effects from stressors; and local species that are of concern to Federal and state regulatory agencies (e.g., endangered and threatened species) (U.S. EPA, 1993).

Methods and Tools for Estimation of the Exposure of Terrestrial Wildlife to Contaminants (1997) (120 pp, 561 K, About PDF) provides life history parameter values for use in exposure assessment for eight mammals and five birds (selected based on their likely occurrence at U.S. Department of Energy facilities). Parameters described include distribution (range), body weight/size, food habits and diet composition, food and water consumption rates, soil ingestion, respiration rate, metabolism, habitat requirements, home range, population density, population dynamics/survival, reproduction/breeding, and other behavior.

The Wildlife Scenario Builder (WSB) includes wildlife and life history databases with information on 49 North American species of wildlife, including 24 species of birds, 17 species of mammals, 3 species of amphibians, and 5 species of reptiles (see Table 1). The life history database contains natural history information (e.g., distribution, habitat, diet) and physiological data (body weight, intake requirements for air, water and food/energy) relevant to wildlife exposure assessment. The information in the database was extracted primarily from EPA’s Wildlife EFH (U.S. EPA, 1993).The WSB makes calculating exposure via the diet easier and more accurate by calculating energy requirements using allometric equations; calculating the energy content of food items; linking food energy content with measured dietary item intakes; and allowing for user adjustment of diet scenarios.