Reintroduction of freshwater macroinvertebrates: challenges and opportunities.

Species reintroductions - the translocation of individuals to areas in which a species has been extirpated with the aim of re-establishing a self-sustaining population - have become a widespread practice in conservation biology. Reintroduction projects have tended to focus on terrestrial vertebrates and, to a lesser extent, fishes. Much less effort has been devoted to the reintroduction of invertebrates into restored freshwater habitats.

Assessment of the structural quality of streams in Germany--basic description and current status.

Fifteen years ago, the first mapping guidelines for the recording and evaluation of river physical habitat quality in Germany, closely following the Länder Arbeitsgemeinschaft Wasser (LAWA) field survey, have been published. In light of this experience, a revised version has now been developed for North Rhine-Westphalia (West Germany). For the assessment, the streams are divided into segments serving as survey units.

The toxic potential of an industrial effluent determined with the Saccharomyces cerevisiae-based assay.

Increasing levels of environmental pollution and the continuous monitoring of water quality both request specific and sensitive methods for the detection of detrimental water contents. On a regulatory basis genotoxicity is assessed by the standard umu-test (ISO 13829) that responds to DNA damage induced by chemicals. The focus of this study was the examination of the toxic potential of samples taken from the wastewater treatment plant of a refinery factory to explore the applicability of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae (bakers yeast) test for the detection of bio-available genotoxic activity in complex matrices.

Phenotypic yeast growth analysis for chronic toxicity testing.

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae the pH-dependent growth inhibition of the heavy metals Cu(2+), Cr(6+), Zn(2+), Co(2+), and Cd(2+) was examined in comparison to that of organic solvents and pure compounds DMSO, MNNG, 4-NQO, MTBE, ethanol, and 2-AA. The assay was based on both S. cerevisiae wild-type and genetically modified cells deleted in the transporters Pdr5, Snq2, and Yor1 that facilitate pleiotropic drug resistance to explore the potential for short-term chronic aquatic toxicity tests.

A yeast-based method for the detection of cyto and genotoxicity.

A miniaturized short-term in vivo genotoxicity screening assay based on genetically modified yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) cells was performed to explore the capacity of this eukaryotic organism to detect the presence of genotoxic compounds. An increased general sensitivity of yeast cells to toxic compounds was obtained by using a strain being deleted in the prominent pleiotropic drug resistance mediating efflux transporters PDR5, SNQ2 and YOR1. In order to detect genotoxic effects, a yeast optimized version of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) was fused to the RAD54 promoter that is activated upon DNA damage.