Publications by authors named "Magdalena Boshoff"
Article Synopsis
- The study assessed how metal pollution affects soil functional activity using two methods: Bait lamina assay for animal feeding activity and BIOLOG EcoPlate assay for microbial metabolism.
- Changes in soil communities were notable, with feeding activity dropping from 90% in less polluted areas to just 10% near pollution sources.
- Metal pollutants like arsenic, copper, and lead negatively impacted feeding activity and microbial functions, suggesting that the BIOLOG assay might provide a more consistent measure than the Bait lamina method due to its reduced sensitivity to environmental variations.
The aim of this study was to derive regression-based soil-plant models to predict and compare metal(loid) (i.e. As, Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn) concentrations in plants (grass Agrostis sp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn order to evaluate the usefulness of terrestrial gastropods as bioindicators there is a need for studies that simultaneously compare (1) concentrations of metals in reference and polluted plots, (2) species within the same polluted habitat, (3) metal accumulation patterns in different organs and (4) metal accumulation patterns in relation to soil physicochemical properties. This study aims to assess metal accumulation patterns in two land snail species. Instead of analyzing an organism as a whole, investigating the partitioning of metals in different organs can provide information on the actual toxicological relevant fractions.
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