Search results for "herbicide"
showing 10 items of 273 documents
Female preference and adverse developmental effects of glyphosate-based herbicides on ecologically relevant traits in Japanese quail
2019
Controversial glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) are the most frequently used herbicides globally. An increasing number of studies have identified GBH residues in soil, water and even human food that may expose non-target organism including wildlife, livestock, and humans to health risks. After a heated debate, European Union allowed the use of GBHs to continue until 2022, after which their risks will be re-evaluated. Thus, decision makers urgently need scientific evidence on GBH residues and their possible effects on ecosystems. An important, yet neglected, aspect is to assess whether animals show preference or avoidance for GBH contaminated food, as it can influence the likelihood of adve…
Responses of microbial activity and decomposer organisms to contamination in microcosms containing coniferous forest soil.
2002
Soil respiration from microcosms contaminated with pentachlorophenol, 2-ethanolhexanoate, creosote, CuSO4, and benomyl was measured in order to evaluate usefulness of soil microcosms and microbial respiration rate monitoring as a toxicity test in soils with high organic matter content. Coniferous forest soil and its organisms were used as test objects. In addition, how a short-term low temperature period including frost affects respiration dynamics in stressed soils was studied, i.e., whether contaminants reduce resistance of the community to other (also natural) stresses. In addition, at the end of the experiment, effects of contaminants on faunal and microbial community structures were an…
Birch (Betula spp.) wood biochar is a potential soil amendment to reduce glyphosate leaching in agricultural soils
2015
Glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine), a commonly used herbicide in agriculture can leach to deeper soil layers and settle in surface- and ground waters. To mitigate the leaching of pesticides and nutrients, biochar has been suggested as a potential soil amendment due to its ability to sorb both organic and inorganic substances. However, the efficiency of biochar in retaining agro-chemicals in the soil is likely to vary with feedstock material and pyrolysis conditions. A greenhouse pot experiment, mimicking a crop rotation cycle of three plant genera, was established to study the effects of pyrolysis temperature on the ability of birch (Betula sp.) wood originated biochar to reduce the l…
Biochemical bases for a widespread tolerance of cyanobacteria to the phosphonate herbicide glyphosate
2008
Possible non-target effects of the widely used, non-selective herbicide glyphosate were examined in six cyanobacterial strains, and the basis of their resistance was investigated. All cyanobacteria showed a remarkable tolerance to the herbicide up to millimolar levels. Two of them were found to possess an insensitive form of glyphosate target, the shikimate pathway enzyme 5-enol-pyruvyl-shikimate-3-phosphate synthase. Four strains were able to use the phosphonate as the only phosphorus source. Low uptake rates were measured only under phosphorus deprivation. Experimental evidence for glyphosate metabolism was also obtained in strains apparently unable to use the phosphonate. Results suggest…
Taxonomic and functional diversity of atrazine‐degrading bacterial communities enriched from agrochemical factory soil
2010
Aims: To characterize atrazine-degrading potential of bacterial communities enriched from agrochemical factory soil by analysing diversity and organization of catabolic genes. Methods and Results: The bacterial communities enriched from three different sites of varying atrazine contamination mineralized 65–80% of 14C ring-labelled atrazine. The presence of trzN-atzBC-trzD, trzN-atzABC-trzD and trzN-atzABCDEF-trzD gene combinations was determined by PCR. In all enriched communities, trzN-atzBC genes were located on a 165-kb plasmid, while atzBC or atzC genes were located on separated plasmids. Quantitative PCR revealed that catabolic genes were present in up to 4% of the community. Restricti…
Genetic potential, diversity and activity of an atrazine-degrading community enriched from a herbicide factory effluent
2008
Aims: To characterize an atrazine-degrading bacterial community enriched from the wastewater of a herbicide factory. Methods and Results: The community mineralized 81·4 ± 1·9% of [14C-ring]atrazine and 31·0 ± 1·8% of [14C-ethyl]atrazine within 6 days of batch cultivation in mineral salts medium containing atrazine as the sole nitrogen source. Degradation activity of the community towards different chloro- and methylthio-substituted s-triazine compounds was also demonstrated. Restriction analysis of amplified 16S rDNA revealed high diversity of bacterial populations forming the community, with Pseudomonas species dominating in the clone library. Atrazine-degrading genetic potential of the …
Impact of maize mucilage on atrazine mineralization andatzC abundance
2005
Soil was amended with maize mucilage, a major rhizodeposit, to study its role on the number of culturable soil micro-organisms, the structure of the bacterial community, atrazine mineralization and atzC abundance. The maximal percentage of atrazine mineralization was lower for mucilage-amended than for water-amended soil. Total culturable soil bacteria and 16S rDNA copy number, measured by RT-PCR, presented similar values and were not significantly (P < 0.05) different among treatments. Mucilage applied at a rate of 70 mu g C g(-1) dry soil day(-1) over two weeks did not modify the abundance of the total soil microflora. Global structure of soil bacterial communities revealed by RISA analys…
A multicommuted flow system with solenoid micro-pumps for paraquat determination in natural waters.
2007
A flow system designed with solenoid micro-pumps is proposed for the determination of paraquat in natural waters. The procedure involves the reaction of paraquat with dehydroascorbic acid followed by spectrophotometric measurements. The proposed procedure minimizes the main drawbacks related to the standard chromatographic procedure and to flow analysis and manual methods with spectrophotometric detection based on the reaction with sodium dithionite, i.e. high solvent consumption and waste generation and low sampling rate for chromatography and high instability of the reagent in the spectrophotometric procedures. A home-made 10-cm optical-path flow cell was employed for improving sensitivit…
Contributions to the analysis of organic xenobiotics in fish
1995
For the residue-analysis of fish samples, a method has been developed to separate the medium polar triazines and acetamides together with lipophilic xenobiotics (organochlorine pesticides, PCBs and octachlorostyrene) from fish tissue. The detection limits of the analytes are mostly within the ppt-range (ng/kg fillet) and vary between 40 and 1050 ng/kg fillet of fish. Their recoveries range from 75 to 108%, spiked at 1.5 μg/kg. The substances are extracted with a mixture of petroleum ether/ethylacetate (2:1) using a soxhlet apparatus. Subsequently, the lipids in the sample extracts are reduced to 0.4% by gel chromatography. A 5 g silica gel clean-up separates the analytes according to their …
Use of gold nanoparticle-coated sorbent materials for the selective preconcentration of sulfonylurea herbicides in water samples and determination by…
2012
Abstract Two new gold nanoparticle (NP) coated materials (silica supported on gold NP with and without ionic liquid) were synthesized for solid phase extraction of sulfonylurea herbicides (SUHs), such as bensulfuron-methyl (BSM), metsulfuron-methyl (MSM), pyrazosulfuron-methyl (PSM), thifensulfuron-methyl (TFM) and triasulfuron (TS), from water samples, followed by capillary liquid chromatography coupled to diode array detection (CLC–DAD). Several factors influencing the preconcentration efficiency of SUHs and its subsequent determination, such as pH of the sample, eluent and reusability of sorbents, have been investigated. Under the optimum conditions, the developed method allowed the dete…