The National Academy of Sciences Ocean Studies Board is conducting a project entitled “Assessment of the Cumulative Effects of Anthropogenic Stressors on Marine Mammals.” The NAS project website explains:
“The committee will conduct a workshop and review the present scientific understanding of cumulative effects of anthropogenic stressors on marine mammals with a focus on anthropogenic sound. The committee will assess current methodologies used for evaluating cumulative effects and identify new approaches that could improve these assessments. The committee will examine theoretical and field methods used to assess the effect of anthropogenic stressors for:
- Short or infrequent exposure in the context of other known stressors (i.e. multiple stressors, both natural and anthropogenic); and
- Chronic exposure in the context of other known stressors;
The review of methodologies will begin by focusing on ways to quantify exposure-related changes in the behavior, health, or body condition of individual marine mammals and assess the potential to use quantitative indicators of health or body condition to estimate changes in vital rates and, in turn, estimate the potential population-level effects.”
NAS staff now plan a September 2016 date for publication of the Committee’s report.