New project started: ARISTO

As acknowledged by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) soil microorganisms play a key role in ecosystem functioning and there is a lack of appropriate methods to assess impacts on them. ARISTO, the European Industry-Academia Network for Revising and Advancing the Assessment of the Soil Microbial Toxicity of Pesticides, started in 2021 and addresses this need by developing and standardizing new methods for the assessment of soil microbial toxicity of pesticides. ARISTO is an international training network funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. It focuses on the ecotoxicological response of key soil functional groups like ammonia oxidizing microorganisms and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi as microbial indicators of pesticide toxicity. Within ARISTO, ECT contributes to the development of methods to assess the toxicity of pesticides and mixtures of pesticide on soil microorganisms and their interaction with terrestrial soil invertebrates such as nematodes.

For more information, see here.