The bentgrasses comprise an adaptable group of grasses that include introduced species, cultivated turfgrasses, and native plants in North America. Their distribution in cultural landscapes has not been documented, and this gap in knowledge has limited the development of predictive ecological risk assessments for creeping bentgrass engineered for herbicide resistance. In this study, bentgrass distribution and abundance were surveyed in 289 plots in an 8.5 km2 site surrounding a golf course in the northeastern United States. Four introduced species and two native bentgrasses were identified in seminatural and managed plant communities. Across the study site, 77% of the plots containing creeping bentgrass also had invasive plants. Bentgrasses co-occurred with critical habitat for threatened or endangered animals. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that bentgrasses were positively correlated with herbaceous plant cover and mowing, but negatively correlated with tree canopy cover, shrub cover, poorly drained soils, and leaf litter. The most influential ecological factors were tree canopy cover and soil moisture. Geospatial information about these two ecological factors was combined with mathematical models to generate two habitat suitability maps. The favorable environments map (FEM) showed that highly suitable bentgrass habitat covered 36% of the study site and included common features such as home lawns and railroad right-of-ways. Our results suggest that release of herbicide-resistant creeping bentgrass in this cultural landscape could potentially result in pollen-mediated gene flow, interspecific hybridization, environmental hazards, and herbicide selection pressure in some areas. Habitat suitability maps could be critical tools for predictive ecological risk assessments, monitoring projects, and management of herbicide-resistant bentgrasses.

Gene flow is an important consideration in the adoption of crops with novel traits or transgenes when sexually compatible relatives occur in the landscape. Unfortunately, gene flow and its long-term environmental impacts are very difficult to predict without releasing and studying the novel genotype. This project uses a retrospective population genetics approach to characterize the relationship between cultivated creeping bentgrass (CB) on a golf course and the same species in five feral populations nearby. CB plants were collected from an 8-yr-old golf course, five weedy populations up to 1,020 m from the golf course, and four modern CB cultivars. Using microsatellite markers and Bayesian inference, two major genetic clusters were distinguished: (1) CB cultivars and individuals from the golf course (cultivar genotype), and (2) the majority of individuals (62%) from the five feral populations (feral genotype). Two feral CB individuals (3.3% of all feral plants) were partially assigned to the cultivar genotype. Principal coordinates analysis agreed with this assignment, suggesting that an intraspecific hybridization event may have occurred. Plants in four feral populations showed a high degree of genetic similarity, but one feral population (Reservoir) was heterogeneous indicating that genetically complex CB populations can develop in cultural landscapes. While recognizing the limitations inherent in a single study of CB population genetics, these results add to the relevant knowledge for predictive ecological risk assessment.

With slow growth rates, late maturity and a high maximum age of 100 years or more, orange roughy can be classified as a vulnerable deepwater fish species that can only sustain low rates of exploitation. Historical patterns of exploitation associated with this species suggest that it is currently not possible to manage its fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic sustainably, and the total allowable catch for orange roughy has been gradually reduced to zero for European fisheries since 2010. Orange roughy to the west of Ireland and Britain occurs on distinct bathymetric features (seamounts, hills and canyons) as well as on flat ground along the continental slope. Productivity-susceptibility analysis (PSA) was performed to evaluate the biological vulnerability of orange roughy in relation to other deepwater species and the risk that recent and current fisheries pose to its populations in the study area. Time-dependant PSA, based on the spatial overlap between orange roughy distribution and recent and current deepwater fisheries demonstrated a strong reduction in risk over time when fisheries stopped directed targeting practices and continued with mixed deepwater trawl fisheries. Some spatial overlap between the species and current fisheries remains, and while the method can show relative risk reduction, it cannot provide information on whether the risk is low enough to allow the recovery of depleted populations.

Bycatch in longline fisheries is considered one of the main threats for the conservationof albatrosses and petrels worldwide. However, the relative impact of fisheries on all theaffected populations or species still remains poorly understood. This paper applied aProductivity and Susceptibility Analysis (PSA) and the concept of “Potential BiologicalRemoval Level” (PBR) to assess the relative impact caused by the Uruguayan pelagiclongline fishery on several populations. This two-step approach allowed us to obtain anobjective view of the relative impact of the Uruguayan pelagic longline fleet on most ofthe populations or species of albatrosses and petrels with high association with thisfishery. Of fifteen species considered, fourteen were finally assessed and a ranking ofrisk derived. The concept of PBR was applied to the nine most at-risk species. The impactof fishing on populations could not be straightforwardly inferred from their bycatchrates. Results indicate that large albatrosses (Diomedea spp.) andThalassarche chlororhynchos are more affected than some of the mainspecies caught by the fishery (i.e. Thalassarche melanophrys andProcellaria aequinoctialis). Diomedea exulans fromSouth Georgia is likely to be the population most affected by the Uruguayan fleet. Thiswork should be seen as a case study of the fisheries operating in the southwesternAtlantic. The Uruguayan fleet within its operation area was responsible for only the 4.3%to 12.5% of the total annual effort deployed by the different fleets during 2004–2008. Thecombined impact of these fleets could be sufficiently high to account for many of theobserved declines in the populations of D. exulans, D. dabbenenaand T. chlororhynchos. However, the seabird bycatch numbers formost of the pelagic longline fleets that operate in the southwest Atlantic remain unknown.Applying mitigation measures to reduce the impact of pelagic longline fleets operating inthis region should be considered a high priority.

Ecological risk assessment is a useful methodology for assisting the management of fisheries from an ecosystem perspective. Atlantic tuna fisheries, managed by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), are economically important and interact with several bycatch species. In spite of these interactions, no comprehensive ecological risk assessment has been conducted for bycatch species caught in ICCAT fisheries. In this paper, we followed a two stage approach with the objective of assessing the relative risk of species being negatively impacted by Atlantic tuna fisheries. An analysis of the ICCAT bycatch species list (which includes all species reported to have interacted with different tuna fishing gears operating in the Atlantic) revealed that most of these species are caught in longline fisheries, followed by gillnets and purse seines. According to the IUCN red list, 7 species of the ICCAT bycatch list (3 coastal sharks, 3 sea turtles and one seabird) are categorized as critically endangered. In our study, and based on their life history characteristics, marine mammals and coastal sharks caught in ICCAT fisheries showed the highest intrinsic vulnerability values. A productivity susceptibility analysis for the European Union (EU) tropical tuna purse seine fleet and the United States (US) pelagic longline fleet revealed two groups with high relative risk scores. The first one included pelagic and coastal sharks, characterized by relatively low productivities, and the second one included teleosts, characterized by higher productivities but high susceptibility to purse seine and longline gears. Some alternative approaches to conduct productivity susceptibility analyses in the context of ecological risk assessments are discussed.

A procedure is presented for developing environmental risk hypotheses associated with thedeployment of forest trees genetically modified to have altered wood properties and forselecting non-target species to test these hypotheses. Altered-lignin Pinusradiata trees intended for use in New Zealand are used as a hypothetical casestudy to illustrate our approach. Firstly, environmental management goals (such as woodproduction, flood control or preservation of biodiversity) were identified and linked tothe forest attributes they require. Necessary conditions for each attribute were listedand appropriate assessment endpoints for them developed. For example, biological controlof pests may be one condition necessary for a forest to have healthy trees, and thediversity and abundance of natural enemy species in the forest could be an appropriateassessment endpoint for measuring this condition. A conceptual model describing therelationships between an altered-lignin GM pine tree and potentially affectedinvertebrates and micro-organisms in a plantation forest was used to develop a set of riskhypotheses describing how the GM trees might affect each assessment endpoint. Becausepurified lignin does not represent the properties it imparts to wood, maximum hazard dosetests with non-target organisms, as are used to inform toxin risk assessment, cannot beconducted. Alternative experiments, based on current knowledge of the responses oforganisms to lignin, must be designed. A screening method was adapted and applied to adatabase of invertebrate species known to inhabit New Zealand pine forests to identify andprioritize non-target invertebrate species that could be used as experimental subjects forexamining these hypotheses. The screening model and its application are presented, alongwith a set of recommendations for pre-release tests with GM pines and potentially affectedinvertebrates and micro-organisms.

An ecological risk assessment (ERA; also known as productivity and susceptibility analysis, PSA) was conducted on eleven species of pelagic elasmobranchs (10 sharks and 1 ray) to assess their vulnerability to pelagic longline fisheries in the Atlantic Ocean. This was a level-3 quantitative assessment consisting of a risk analysis to evaluate the biological productivity of these species and a susceptibility analysis to assess their propensity to capture and mortality in pelagic longline fisheries. The risk analysis estimated productivity (intrinsic rate of increase, r) using a stochastic Leslie matrix approach that incorporated uncertainty in age at maturity, lifespan, age-specific natural mortality and fecundity. Susceptibility to the fishery was calculated as the product of four components, which were also calculated quantitatively: availability of the species to the fleet, encounterability of the gear given the species vertical distribution, gear selectivity and post-capture mortality. Information from observer programs by several ICCAT nations was used to derive fleet-specific susceptibility values. Results indicated that most species of pelagic sharks have low productivities and varying levels of susceptibility to pelagic longline gear. A number of species were grouped near the high-risk area of the productivity-susceptibility plot, particularly the silky (Carcharhinus falciformis), shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus), and bigeye thresher (Alopias superciliosus) sharks. Other species, such as the oceanic whitetip (Carcharhinus longimanus) and longfin mako (Isurus paucus) sharks, are also highly vulnerable. The blue shark (Prionace glauca) has intermediate vulnerability, whereas the smooth hammerhead (Sphyrna zygaena), scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini), and porbeagle (Lamna nasus) sharks are less vulnerable, and the pelagic stingray (Pteroplatytrygon violacea) and common thresher (Alopias vulpinus) sharks have the lowest vulnerabilities. As a group, pelagic sharks are particularly vulnerable to pelagic longline fisheries mostly as a result of their limited productivity.


We have developed a screening method that can be used during the problem formulation phase of risk assessment to identify and prioritize non-target invertebrates for risk analysis with any transgenic plant. In previously published protocols for this task, five criteria predominated. These criteria have been combined by our method in a simple model which assesses: (1) the possible level of risk presented by the plant to each invertebrate species (through measurements of potential hazard and exposure, the two principal criteria); (2) the hypothetical environmental impact of this risk (determined by the currently known status of the species' population in the ecosystem and its potential resilience to environmental perturbations); (3) the estimated economic, social and cultural value of each species; and (4) the assessed ability to conduct tests with the species. The screening method uses information on each of these criteria entered into a specially designed database that was developed using Microsoft $^{\circledR}$ Access 2003. The database holds biological and ecological information for each non-target species, as well as information about the transgenic plant that is the subject of the risk assessment procedure. Each piece of information is then ranked on the basis of the value of the information to each criterion being measured. This ranking system is flexible, allowing the method to be easily adapted for use in any agro-ecosystem and with any plant modification. A model is then used to produce a Priority Ranking of Non-Target Invertebrates (PRONTI) score for each species, which in turn allows the species to be prioritized for risk assessment. As an example, the method was used to prioritize non-target invertebrates for risk assessment of a hypothetical introduction of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) Cry1Ac-expressing Pinus radiata trees into New Zealand.