AMEO experience: Basque Country University in Bilbao, Spain – Danisa Lione (2023)

In this blogpost, Danisa Lione shares his internship experience at the Basque Country University in Bilbao, Spain. Students of the Environmental Pollution Management (Ecotoxicology)  Program complete an 8-week internship each year, the so-called “AMEO”. The AMEO is performed either at an external university, governmental or industrial research institute  where students learn to apply the competences achieved during their study. Students also use this opportunity to travel and explore not only Germany, but also other countries.

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Exploring Environmental Frontiers: Highlights from the 12th SETAC YES Meeting 2023 (Part 2)

The 12th YES Meeting, organized by SETAC Europe’s Student Advisory Council, brought together emerging environmental scientists at RPTU (Campus Landau), Germany, to delve into the theme “Science Through Crises.” The second installment of this multipart blog series centers on the pivotal informative sessions conducted throughout the week-long YES Meeting 2023.

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Exploring Environmental Frontiers: Highlights from the 12th SETAC YES Meeting 2023 (Part 1)

The 12th YES Meeting, organized by SETAC Europe’s Student Advisory Council, brought together emerging environmental scientists at RPTU (Campus Landau), Germany, to delve into the theme “Science Through Crises.” The first installment of this multipart blog series centers on the pivotal informative sessions conducted throughout the week-long YES Meeting 2023.

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Bio-QSARs: the inclusion of physiological trait information in machine learning QSARs allows predictions across species

In this blogpost, Jochen Zubrod talks about developing an innovative machine learning approach for ecotoxicity predictions. These cutting-edge models show impressive predictive power for acute pesticide toxicity in freshwater organisms, holding promise for applications in environmental risk assessment and pesticide research and development.

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Does global warming lead to taxonomical and functional reorganization of insect communities in European rivers?

In this blogpost, Dr. Alessandro Manfrin, postdoc of the DFG RTG SystemLink,  talks about his recent study published “Taxonomic and functional reorganization in Central European stream macroinvertebrate communities over 25 years”. Here they observed that because of increasing temperatures, species that favour cold waters are progressively replaced by those that favour warm temperatures leading to functional alterations of the community.

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Unveiling the Hidden Sources of Plastic Pollution: Shedding Light on Overlooked Microplastics and Novel Plastic Forms

The impact of plastic pollution on marine ecosystems has received substantial attention. However, there are emerging concerns regarding overlooked sources and novel forms of plastic pollution that have remained largely unexplored. This blog post covers the Special Issue of – ‘Frontiers in Marine Science’ , which sheds light on these hidden sources of plastic pollution.

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Beyond the classroom: 1st semester ends on the field

In May 2023, a group of M.Sc. Ecotoxicology students along with Carsten Brühl went to the Ecosystem Research Facility, Eusserthal (EERES) and the Riparian Stream Mesocosms (RSM). This excursion was a part of a module in the study program of M.Sc. Environmental Pollution Management (Ecotoxicology). In this blogpost, Danisa Lione and Hajar Bourassi (student representatives of the 2022 cohort), present some brief details about the excursion and their experience.

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Impacts of Anthropogenic Stressors on Aquatic Insects and Terrestrial Food Webs

Anthropogenic stressors have a significant impact on the delicate balance of ecosystems such as emergence of aquatic insects, connecting aquatic and terrestrial food webs. These insects act as a high-quality food source for terrestrial consumers, such as spiders. In this blogpost, Sebastian Pietz talks about his latest publication on exploring the potential effects of subsidy quality on spiders.

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