Ecotoxicology lab RC One Health Ruhr

New paper out: We critically analyse the European Environmental Risk Assessment for pesticides and provide a rebuttal to several claims of Schriever et al. 2025 IEAM. Joint effort with many colleagues. Download here: pubs.acs.org/a/5444813?gu...

Just published: A critical assessment of the EUs plans to revise pesticide and biocide regulation. doi.org/10.1186/s123... Most comprehensive analysis I know on the Omnibus, lead by @thomasbackhaus.eu

Congratulations to Max Herzog and his supervisor Marie Brasseur for First presentation award at the #Umwelt2026 conference. Really happy that the price went to our team!

Umwelt 2026 (Setac German language branch and German Society of Chemists Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology Branch) is ending. Many of our group contributed with talk, discussion - or helping in the conference. Thanks to all participants for coming to Essen!

New paper out where we ran a mesocosm study and examined how resource quality moderate effects of toxicants on ecosystem functioning. Very nice work, lead by Alexander Feckler, in a project with Mirco Bundschuh and Ralf Schulz besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New online! Implementation of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation requires a shift from restoration targets to restoration landscapes

First release: ''EU Omnibus proposal increases pesticide risks'' | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Led by Dimitry Wintermantel: we demonstrate that it will amplify rather than resolve shortcomings of current environmental risk assessment, with major risks to human health and the environment.

www.uni-due.de/2026-06-19-f.... Paper in Science zum Gesetzesvorhaben der EU im Bereich des Pflanzenschutzes

Together with many colleagues, we analyse the plans of the EU with respect to pesticides and plant protection products. Just out: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Thrilled to join as Associate Editor under the lead of Beate Escher for the new journal ES&T Toxicology. Now open for submissions. pubs.acs.org/journal/aeta...

Radiobeitrag in dem ich unser Positionspapier zu den Plänen der EU Kommission erläutert habe. www.deutschlandfunk.de/leopoldina-k...

New review on how pesticide exposure and effects match with the intention of European pesticide regulation. We show that both exposure and effects exceed regulatory thresholds. doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

Looking forward to assist in launching ES&T toxicology: pubs.acs.org/journal/aeta...

Paul Ozoh gave a nice talk on the predictability of pesticide authorization from simple tests. #SETAC2026

W/ several colleagues we wrote a rebuttal to the supposedly "critical review" of Schriever et al 2025 in IEAM, where they argue that the current regulatory system for PPPs is largely working well regarding environmental protection (criticising earlier work of us). ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Ecotoxicology lab at @setac.bsky.social #Maastricht 2026 - nice conference with exciting discussions.

Nice session today on One Health that we were organizing #SETAC2026 #OneHealth

Visit our poster today @setac.bsky.social Meeting in Maastricht. Hanh Nguyễn discusses the relevance of pesticides as mixtures in streams. She ran extensive analyses to see whether the #KGM (Liess et al 2021 Wat Res) results hold under different assumptions.

Nice commentary on our recent work: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Somehow reparation for the rejection at first submission of the paper ;-)

A large-scale analysis of U.S. water quality data published last year in Science revealed that most toxic chemicals remain poorly characterized or undetected in routine monitoring. https://scim.ag/4alqHdl #WorldWaterDay

Der Wissenschaftliche Beirat zum Nationalen Aktionsplan Pflanzenschutz warnt: Die von der EU-Kommission geplanten Vereinfachungen bei der Pflanzenschutzmittelregulierung könnten erhebliche Risiken für Mensch und Umwelt mit sich bringen. www.uni-due.de/2026-03-12-g...

How should you report results from thermal tolerance experiments? We have developed a reporting guideline. Very nice work by Helena Bayat. doi.org/10.1016/j.jt...

Dr. Daniel Hering, #UDE -Professor für #AquatischeÖkologie, ist für den renommierten #FrontiersPlanetPrize nominiert worden – als einer von 3 Forschenden in 🇩🇪! Wer den mit insgesamt 3 Mio. US-Dollar dotierten Preis erhalten wird, entscheidet eine internationale Jury. 🤞 www.uni-due.de/2026-01-27-d...

A study found that a widely used insecticide, chlorpyrifos, speeds up aging in a common lake fish by shortening the protective caps on its chromosomes, and leads to its premature death. https://scim.ag/49Hp7jU

The Molecular Toxicology Group at the Helmholtz Centre of Environmental Research (UFZ) is looking for a creative and ambitious PhD candidate to use novel approaches to remove persistent PFAS from living organisms.🧬🐟🧪📈 Read more 👉 rptu.de/s/xphztf Application closing: 16.01.2026

How to evaluate the relative risks of pesticides and identify lower risk alternatives? This question in light of the EU COM Omnibus suggestions to lower environmental protection. Within the #EU PARC project we developed a benchmark concept and discuss its implications doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

#Exposome research comes of age: After 20 years, the field of #exposomics is poised to reveal the complex, interacting drivers of #disease. A PNAS News Feature: https://ow.ly/9QOg50XPn5J #exposure #pesticides #pollution #wildfires #biobank #genomics #PublicHealth

An analysis of U.S. water quality data reveals that most toxic chemicals remain poorly characterized or undetected in routine monitoring. The findings in Science suggest that the true scale of chemical risk to biodiversity and ecosystems may be significantly underestimated. https://scim.ag/4alqHdl

Our new paper shows that even over decades protected areas have offered little improvements of freshwater biodiversity. We suggest avenues for improvement. Fantastic study lead by P. Haase and J. Sinclair. #OA rdcu.be/eU5jm presse.senckenberg.de/en/pressemel...

Our December issue is now live: www.nature.com/natecolevol/... Featuring research on 🧪 🦏 rhinocerotid dispersal in the mid-Cenozoic 🐟 biodiversity responses to freshwater stressors 🦋 evolution of butterfly eyespots Cover shows a Korean seahorse, from Meyer et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New study on the spatial dimension of multiple stressors. Gemma Burgazzi (iDiv) did a great job in running this mesocosm experiment. Effects of single stressors cascaded along the network, with stronger downstream effects. Thanks to all contributors! @leeselab.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/ecog...

This global meta-analysis of freshwater stressor–response relationships reveals that the biodiversity loss of five riverine organism groups reflects elevated salinity, oxygen depletion and fine sediment accumulation 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Data source and code are of course freely available. And hopefully a useful source for future predictive models in aquatic stress ecology.

And we can now also align species richness to combinations of stressors (Fig 4):

We observed consistent relation with salinity, oxygen depletion, and fine sediment accumulation, while the relation with nutrient enrichment and warming varied among groups. The results allow us, amongst others, to predict how species richness changes with increasing stressors intensity (Fig. 3):

The figure (1a) shows the probability distribution on how species number of the different organism groups are associated with increasing stress intensity. Invertebrates are generally most sensitive and species number is negatively associated to six of the stressors.

We extracted data on 1,332 stressor–response relationships from literature and ran Generalised Linear Mixed Models for each dataset individually. With the resulting estimates (e.g. regression coefficients) we performed a Bayesian meta-analysis. In short, these are the results:

Led by Wim Kaijser, we published a global analysis on how five different organism groups respond to seven stressor categories. New paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution. www.nature.com/articles/s41....

Wenn das #Wasser wärmer wird, gerät das Leben aus dem Gleichgewicht. Forscher:innen der #UDE haben mit #ThermoFresh die weltweit größte, frei zugängliche Datensammlung zur Hitzetoleranz von #Süßwasserarten veröffentlicht. 📸: UDE/Sebastian Prati 👉 https://www.uni-due.de/2025-10-07-thermofresh

In a Consensus Statement in Nature Microbiology, a consortium of #microbiome scientists discusses current sequencing data sharing policies and proposes the use of a Data Reuse Information tag to promote equitable and collaborative data sharing. go.nature.com/4o1Gl1f 🧪