Towards an improved ability to estimate internal dose to non-human biota; Development of conceptual models for reference non-human biota

Conceptual models have been developed for Reference Fish and Amphibian based on the chemical composition of biota tissues. It was found that these non-human biota can be divided into simplified compartments, where the number of compartments depends upon the element being considered. In most cases, one of two conceptual models can be applied to assess internal partitioning patterns between tissues: 1.) Elements can be relatively uniformly-distributed throughout the body (i.e. whole organism is represented by one homogeneous compartment); or 2.) Elements can be sub-divided between two to three homogeneous compartments. Although preliminary, this work is aimed at developing realistic frameworks to facilitate estimation of internal dose to non-human biota for use in Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) and Environmental Effects Monitoring (EEM)