Projects

Given that the ultimate goal of ecotoxicology is the identification of effects at the population and ecosystem levels, microbial communities were picked for reasons of their supreme importance in the environment. Two microbial communities (intestinal microbiomes and environmental microbial biofilms) will be investigated with respect to effects by the test substances (cf. WPs 1 and 2). The intestinal biofilm population shifts may be responsible for the health status of the aquatic organisms, whereas
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As an intermediate stage of complexity, fish embryos will be used as a tool to mediate the transfer of data compiled at the molecular and cellular levels (WPs 3 and 4) to intact, fully developed fish (WP 6). To this end, similar endpoints as in WP 4 will be recorded in modified zebrafish embryo assays [85]. In addition, extension of the test duration will allow adding of teratogenic effects to the list of endpoints.

The purpose of WP 4 is to provide a set of toxicological base data on the test substances at the mo-lecular and cellular levels. The focus will not be restricted to basic acute toxicity, but will also cover specific endpoints such as interaction with DNA and DNA damage, the induction of cytochrome P450 as well as the response to glucocorticoid stress hormones and metabolic signaling by glucose. With respect to the selection of test compounds, WP 4 depends on the outcome of WPs 1 and 2.

WP 2 will address metabolites and transformation products (TPs) of compounds selected in WP 1. These will be generated and identified by means of electrochemical synthesis mimicking mainly Phase I metabolism and mass spectrometric detection. The mixture of metabolites and TPs will be used for ligand screening with nuclear receptors (WP 3) using the analytical methodology devel-oped as well as for further toxicity screening for effects on cells (WP 4) and in biota (WPs 5 and 6).

This WP aims at understanding the awareness of the different actor groups to the impact of two types of substances on aquatic ecosystems in terms of biodiversity and human health: pharmaceu-ticals and food additives. The WP brings together both quantitative and qualitative methods for gen-erating and analyzing data. Each research step will be informed by the findings of the science teams and make an effort to integrate as much of the knowledge produced with regard to toxicolog-ical and ecological
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The objectives of WP 10 are to prepare the ground for WP 11, which seeks to assess how the key actors perceive biological hazards in aquatic ecosystems. Before these insights can be provided – and guidelines for changing the actors’ perceptions and actions produced –, the actors involved in the evaluation of biological hazards in aquatic ecosystems must be identified, which represents the objective of this WP. The proceeding outline here corresponds to the approach developed by Lang and Tosun
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Results of the multi-level scale approach on effects for the selected micropollutants and their TPs and metabolites will be evaluated and integrated as a base for the creation of a tool box for the ef-fect-based risk assessment. Results will stimulate further work in the development of models linking exposure and effect data with hydrological models. This will require the correlation of results from receptor assays, cell lines and animal models. Microbial data will be linked to the health status
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