In the second installment of the ‘Year in Review’ series, we give our readers a glimpse of 3 most visited posts in the year 2021.
This blogpost is an extension of the first installment of the blogpost series ‘Year in Review’ . To view the posts covered in the first installment, please click on the following link:-
Year in Review (Part 1): https://ecotox-blog.uni-landau.de/year-in-review-part-1/)
1. Water Quality in European Surface Waters (Part 1-3)
In this blog-post series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), Jakob Wolfram explains about analyzing large monitoring data-sets in order to understand water quality changes in Europe. The series details his research work titled ‘Water Quality and Ecological Risks in European Surface Waters – Monitoring Improves While Water Quality Decreases’. The focus here is on how to determine the chemicals which are responsible for changes in water quality, risk assessment and spatial data analysis. The series has been presented as a beginner’s guide on how to understand research question(s), which data-sets are to be used, constructing different models for obtaining a clear picture of the data and to deduce relevant information from the models.
To read more about his work, please follow the links given below:-
Part 2 – https://ecotox-blog.uni-landau.de/water-quality-in-european-surface-waters-a-risky-situation-part-2/
Part 3 – https://ecotox-blog.uni-landau.de/water-quality-in-european-surface-waters-a-spatial-complex-part-3/
2. Amphibians are at risk from pesticides in agricultural landscapes
This blogpost gives details about three recent papers published by Christoph Leeb and Elena Adams on effects of pesticides on amphibians, since pesticides are known to be one of the major causes of worldwide amphibian population decline. Their papers show how amphibians (especially toads) deal with living in a pesticide – contaminated environment, what happens to them when they come into direct contact with pesticides (contact via skin) and if the latter has an effect on the reproducing ability of the amphibians. These papers were aimed at informing ongoing developments of pesticide testing and environmental risk assessment strategies in the European Union.
To read more about her work, please follow the link given below:-
https://ecotox-blog.uni-landau.de/amphibians-are-at-risk-from-pesticides-in-agricultural-landscapes/
3. Pesticides threaten vulnerable invertebrates in streams
This post is a collaboration between Matthias Liess (UFZ) and Verena Schreiner from our University on the topic “Pesticides are the dominant stressors for vulnerable insects in lowland streams”. The researchers studied macroinvertebrate communities, pesticide exposure and several other stressors related to agricultural land use at several monitoring sites over two consecutive years. Their findings show that regulatory thresholds of pesticides need to be reduced by factors of 5 to 40, (depending on the compound) in order to protect macroinvertebrate communities in agricultural streams.
To read more about his work, please follow the link given below:-
https://ecotox-blog.uni-landau.de/pesticides-threaten-vulnerable-invertebrates-in-streams/