Category Archives: Research

The Impact of Pesticides on Biodiversity: A Case Study of Banana Production in Costa Rica

In this blog post, Carsten Brühl is explaining the background and findings of a review produced together with colleagues of the Central American Institute for Studies on Toxic Substances (IRET) at Universidad Nacional (UNA), in Costa Rica that focusses on pesticide use in banana plantations and addresses exposure and effects in environment and human health. The review is the result of a DFG – Conare collaboration funding.

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Neonicotinoids in global surface waters – risks and challenges

In this blog post, Sebastian Stehle presents a meta-analysis on the exposure and risks of the most widely used insecticides in the world, neonicotinoids, for global agricultural surface waters. Although acute risks for aquatic organisms from neonicotinoid exposure appear to be low, risk assessment results also show chronic risks to be of critical concern. Importantly, official regulatory threshold levels (RTLs) determined for pesticide authorization differed widely between countries, indicating large uncertainties and regulatory challenges in defining robust and protective threshold levels for neonicotinoids.

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Maritime ropes leave behind plasticrusts on rocky coasts

It has recently been discovered that plastic debris can form crusts on intertidal rocks. This phenomenon has been termed- plasticrust, but the formation process and potential plastic sources are unknown. In this study, we show for the first time that discarded maritime ropes are plasticrust sources and that summer rock surface temperature can contribute to plasticrust formation.

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Actually protected? Pesticides in nature conservation areas

In this blogpost, Jakob Wolfram talks about his recent study “Pesticide occurrence in protected surface waters in nature conservation areas of Germany”. In the study, he analyzed millions of records detailing the occurrence of pesticides in surface waters. The study showed that pesticides frequently occur in strictly protected nature conservation areas and could jeopardize their ecological integrity. 

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Avenues for future research to predict the effects of chemicals

Predicting effects of chemicals in ecosystems is complex due to many factors that influence the action of chemicals. Moreover, understanding chemical effects in ecosystems requires the integration of multiple levels of biological organisation such as cells, organs, organisms, whole populations, communities or ecosystems, which is rarely done. In this blogpost, Anke Schneeweiss and her research team provide a framework for how to integrate these levels by delineating connections between different ecotoxicological perspectives.

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Glimpse of 2022 (Part 2)

In this second installment of the ‘Glimpse of the year 2022’ series, we give our readers a glance of another 3 most visited posts in this year. 

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Glimpse of 2022 (Part 1)

In the first part of the ‘Glimpse of the year 2022’ series, we give our readers a glance of 3 most visited posts about scientific publications in this year. 

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Can heterogeneous landscapes mitigate pesticide stress?

In this blogpost, Moritz Link reports how pesticide toxicity affects stream ecosystems in Transylvania, Romania, a region where traditional agriculture prevails. The researchers analyzed macroinvertebrate communities, leaf litter decomposition and parasite prevalence in relation to physico-chemical stressors in the stream and the landscape.

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Penguins among microplastics!

Interest in microplastic contamination in Antarctica is very recent. For this reason, researchers from University of Koblenz – Landau (Germany) and Universidad de Concepcion (Chile) decided to find out a little more about what is happening in the land of the penguins.

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Excursion to Mals in South Tyrol: Pesticide monitoring along an altitudinal gradient

In May 2022, a couple of M.Sc. Ecotoxicology students along with Carsten Brühl went to South Tyrol (Italy) to investigate the distribution of pesticides in alpine environments. A part of the group were students from the module Methods in Ecotoxicology, that includes a block lecture and a laboratory test and this year also a field part to perform exposure measurements. The Landau group met with Johann Zaller from BOKU Vienna, author of Daily Poison.

In this blogpost, two of those students, Ken Mauser and Nina Engelhard, present the reason for going to South Tyrol, some brief details about the study and their experience.

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