FUTURE-DIRECTIONS IN MODELING WILDLIFE EXPOSURE TO TOXIC-CHEMICALS - COMMENTARY

Predictive modeling of wildlife exposure to toxic chemicals continues to present new challenges for ecologists and modelers. Despite the var iety of approaches developed within the past two decades, new methods are needed to achieve realistic estimates of exposure in practical way s. Promising areas for further development of modeling methods include (1) enhancing the accuracy of food webs, (2) developing a framework f or application of wildlife exposure models, (3) incorporating concepts from landscape ecology into wildlife exposure models to better charac terize habitat heterogeneity and interactions among patches, (4) devel oping practical individual-based models, (5) developing approaches to verify and validate wildlife exposure models, and (6) linking exposure models with population and community models.