News

February 2, 2016

SOLUTIONS: Unravelling complex chemical contamination in aquatic environments

Toxicants are a common source of stress to aquatic ecosystems, often acting in combination with other pressures such as river channel alterations, eutrophication, changes to water temperature and pH and invasive species.

Unravelling the combinations of different chemicals able to cause toxic stress to freshwaters is a really complex process, since such ‘cocktails’ can contain mixtures of substances drawn from 10⁶⁰ possible chemicals.

Do we have to analyse such a myriad of chemicals in order to understand toxic stress? Of course not. However, we need efficient and accurate tools to identify the chemicals that cause major stresses on aquatic organisms in a water body or river basin.

Read SOLUTIONS post at The freshwater blog