Ecological risk of imidacloprid on the Brazilian non-target freshwater organisms Chironomus sancticaroli and Poecilia reticulata.

Imidacloprid (IMI) is a neonicotinoid insecticide widely used in agriculture worldwide. This pesticide has been found in freshwater ecosystems, including Brazilian freshwaters. For this reason, studies are being conducted to detect the presence of IMI in freshwater and understand its effects on the aquatic biota.

Predicting zebrafish spatial avoidance triggered by discharges of dairy wastewater: An experimental approach based on self-purification in a model river.

Wastewater discharges from dairy industries can cause a range of harmful effects in aquatic ecosystems, including a decline in biodiversity due to species evasion. Therefore, it is important to know the purification potential of rivers for the removal of pollutants released in dairy wastewater (DWW). The hypothesis adopted in this work was that the release of DWW into stretches of the Ribeirão dos Pombos River (São Paulo State, Brazil) might trigger an avoidance response, resulting in fish migrating to other regions, with the response being greater when the self-cleaning potential of the river is smaller.

Long-term performance and acute toxicity assessment of scaled-up air-cathode microbial fuel cell fed by dairy wastewater.

Long-term performance of a scaled-up air-cathode microbial fuel cell (MFC) and toxicity removal were studied with dairy wastewater (DW) used as the substrate. The MFC in a semi-continuous flow was strategically inoculated with consortium of Shewanella oneidensis and Clostridium butyricum. The scaled-up approach delivered a maximum power density of 0.

Influence of interspecific interactions on avoidance response to contamination.

An increasing number of studies have shown the ability of organisms to escape from toxic effects due to contamination, by moving spatially towards less contaminated habitats. However, this issue has been investigated in monospecific scenarios, without considering possible interactions between species during the contamination avoidance process. It is widely known that the spatial distribution of one species can be affected by another one, in different ways.