Launched by the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative, the 3rd Global Soil Biodiversity Conference will take place in Dublin on 13-15 March 2023. At this meeting, recent advances in the field of soil biodiversity will be presented and discussed addressing the urgency of meeting global challenges related to human, animal and plant health and a more […]
Low-risk pesticides including biopesticides such as plant extracts, semiochemicals and microbial pesticides shall play a large role in substituting synthetic pesticides according to the Green Deal initiative of the European Union. Further low-risk solutions (phages, protists, microbial consortia, and double-stranded RNA pesticides) are expected to reach the market in the next years. There are ongoing efforts by the European Commission to establish specific risk assessment schemes for such low-risk pesticides…
Low-risk pesticides including biopesticides consisting of plant extracts, semiochemicals such as pheromones and allelochemicals, and microbial pesticides are gaining ground in the global market, where they have started to substitute synthetic pesticides. In addition, phages, protists, microbial consortia and double-stranded (ds)-RNA pesticides are emerging low-risk solutions that are expected to reach the market in coming […]
Lead by Anja Coors, a team of partners in the IMI-funded project ‘Prioritisation and risk evaluation of medicines in the environment’ (PREMIER) developed and recently published a decision tree that shall help to minimize animal testing within PREMIER and beyond. The risk-driven decision tree uses a combination of experimental testing with non-vertebrates and a fish-specific […]
A tremendous effort has been invested in soil monitoring in Europe, at country- as well as EU-level. However, there is so far no comprehensive and updated state of knowledge to identify healthy soils and those requiring protection. For the last few years, the European Topic Centre on Urban Land and Soil Systems (ETC/ULS) has followed […]
Different ready biodegradability tests (OECD 301 series and OECD 310) are currently used for evaluating if a substance is readily biodegradable and for identifying potentially persistent substances. Although the methods differ considerably, the test results are considered equivalent. In persistency assessments under REACH, enhanced ready biodegradability tests with an extended test duration (up to 60 […]
Jörg Römbke, Thomas Knacker and Hans Schallnaß funded ECT Oekotoxikologie GmbH in 1993. After 31 years of service to ECT and after securing ECT’s future as part of the Syntech Research Group in 2021, Jörg Römbke will retire at the end of 2022. We all at ECT are grateful for all the years of cooperation, […]
The decomposition of organic matter is a key microbiological function in soil. A soil is healthy when organic matter decomposition and nutrient cycling are intact. Against this background, a laboratory-based method was developed for quantitative evaluation of microbial decomposition of organic matter in contaminated soil. This method is based on the quantification of the ability […]
Manure is widely used as a fertilizer and applied to agricultural land. It may contain highly active chemicals like veterinary medicinal products or biocides, which enter the environment by this pathway. This is recognized by several regulatory frameworks, however, a detailed method for examining the transformation of chemicals in manure was lacking. The present publication […]
Standard laboratory tests to evaluate the effects of stressors (in most cases chemicals) on soil organisms offer a good compromise between feasibility and outcome, i.e. they should be reproducible and provide robust results. However, these tests may underestimate potential effects of prolonged exposures, particularly for persistent contaminants. In the last years, there was an increase […]