Practical Considerations for the Incorporation of Insect-Mediated Contaminant Flux into Ecological Risk Assessments

Abstract

Insect-mediated contaminant flux is truly an interdisciplinary concept that merges ideas from many technical areas of science (e.g., environmental chemistry, landscape ecology, and entomology). This chapter introduces risk assessors to this emerging and ecologically relevant concept by distilling the main mechanisms that drive insect-mediated contaminant flux and integrating them together so that more informed decisions can be made on whether the phenomenon presents a potential risk at a site.