Guerrero-Pineda Camila, Iacona Gwenllian D, Duzy Leah, Eikenberry Steffen, Frank Ashlea R, Watson Greg, Gerber Leah R
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85284, USA; Center for Biodiversity Outcomes, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85284, USA; Center for Biodiversity Outcomes, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
Sci Total Environ. 2024 Apr 15;921:171032. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171032. Epub 2024 Feb 18.
The use of pesticides promotes food security because of the multiple benefits it brings to agriculture, such as reduction in crop losses. However, the use of pesticides can be potentially harmful to non-target species. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency regulates the use of pesticides to manage the risks associated with these agents and to protect species under the Endangered Species Act. As part of these regulations, pesticides must be registered and then reviewed every 15 years to ensure the use conditions are updated with the best available data. The registration and review process can invoke corrective measures to ensure protection of endangered species. However, the registration review process is highly resource and time consuming. There is currently a backlog of unreviewed pesticides, leaving a large quantity of pesticides without updated use conditions to protect species. Identifying ways to streamline this process is urgently needed. We develop a sequencing approach to address the risk assessment bottleneck in the pesticide registration and review process and identify species that would benefit most from detailed assessments. We then demonstrate the magnitude of potential efficiencies using this sequencing process for 61 terrestrial listed species in the state of California. Our results show a consistent ranking of listed species according to their relative benefits from assessment, with 90 % of the species being robustly classified across scenarios in the sensitivity analysis. We found that prioritizing the assessment of a small group of species could potentially result in high conservation benefits, and identify species in need of more detailed data for a robust sequencing. We examine how a sequencing approach can guide decisions about what species might benefit most from different levels of assessment. Our results demonstrate the conservation benefits of employing a sequencing approach to prioritize the allocation of limited resources for endangered species.
农药的使用促进了粮食安全，因为它给农业带来了多种益处，比如减少作物损失。然而，农药的使用可能会对非目标物种产生潜在危害。在美国，环境保护局对农药的使用进行监管，以管理与这些制剂相关的风险，并根据《濒危物种法》保护物种。作为这些规定的一部分，农药必须进行注册，然后每15年进行一次审查，以确保使用条件根据现有最佳数据进行更新。注册和审查过程可以采取纠正措施，以确保濒危物种得到保护。然而，注册审查过程耗费大量资源和时间。目前存在未审查农药的积压情况，导致大量农药没有更新的使用条件来保护物种。迫切需要找到简化这一过程的方法。我们开发了一种排序方法，以解决农药注册和审查过程中的风险评估瓶颈，并确定最能从详细评估中受益的物种。然后，我们展示了使用这种排序过程对加利福尼亚州61种陆地列名物种的潜在效率规模。我们的结果显示，根据评估的相对益处，列名物种的排名一致，在敏感性分析中，90%的物种在各种情景下都能得到可靠分类。我们发现，优先评估一小部分物种可能会带来很高的保护效益，并确定需要更详细数据以进行稳健排序的物种。我们研究了排序方法如何指导关于哪些物种可能从不同评估水平中受益最多的决策。我们的结果证明了采用排序方法为濒危物种优先分配有限资源的保护效益。
