Environmental toxicology: how pervasive organic environmental pollutants cause toxicity at the molecular, cellular and organism level.

This special issue in FEBS Open Bio was conceived to highlight some of the current research and future directions regarding research in the field of environmental toxicology of some organic pollutants, in relation to human health and disease. It has long been established that man has been exposed to many new (un-natural) organic chemicals since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, many of which are found in a vast and diverse range of products, such as agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, plastics and electronic components, which have been instrumental in driving man's exponential advances in technology over the last 150 years. However, an unforeseen consequence of these advances is that our ecosystem has been exposed to a vast number of these organic chemicals, many of which appear to be persistent within the environment, as well as bioaccumulating in living organisms, including man.

Cytotoxicity by endocrine disruptors through effects on ER Ca transporters, aberrations in Ca signalling pathways and ER stress.

Concerns regarding man-made organic chemicals pervading our ecosystem and having adverse and detrimental effects upon organisms, including man, have now been studied for several decades. Since the 1970s, some environmental pollutants were identified as having endocrine disrupting affects. These endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC) were initially shown to have estrogenic or anti-estrogenic properties and some were also shown to bind to a variety of hormone receptors.

An evolutionary disruption of the buzz pollination syndrome in neotropical montane plants.

Premise: Under pollinator limitations, specialized pollination syndromes may evolve toward contrasting responses: a generalized syndrome with increased pollinator attraction, pollinator reward, and pollen transfer capacity; or the selfing syndrome with increased self-pollen deposition, but reduced pollinator attraction and pollen transfer capacity. The buzz-pollination syndrome is specialized to explore female vibrating bees as pollinators. However, vibrating bees become less-active pollinators at montane areas of the Atlantic Forest (AF) domain.

The Sequential Direct and Indirect Effects of Mountain Uplift, Climatic Niche, and Floral Trait Evolution on Diversification Dynamics in an Andean Plant Clade.

Why and how organismal lineages radiate is commonly studied through either assessing abiotic factors (biogeography, geomorphological processes, and climate) or biotic factors (traits and interactions). Despite increasing awareness that both abiotic and biotic processes may have important joint effects on diversification dynamics, few attempts have been made to quantify the relative importance and timing of these factors, and their potentially interlinked direct and indirect effects, on lineage diversification. We here combine assessments of historical biogeography, geomorphology, climatic niche, vegetative, and floral trait evolution to test whether these factors jointly, or in isolation, explain diversification dynamics of a Neotropical plant clade (Merianieae, Melastomataceae).