A need to integrate and develop ecotoxicology to improve management of territories

Knowledge on fate and fluxes of chemical contaminants within water and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as their impacts on living beings, are now of critical importance. Different compounds, isolated or in complex mixtures, are concerned: metals, organic contaminants (pesticides, medical prescriptions, plasticisers...), as well as biological toxins with adverse biological effects, such as endocrine disruption, gentoxicity or growth or reproduction disruption.

These contaminants, which may or not be introduced intentionally in the environment, modify the functioning of agroecosystems, their structures, and the ecosystem services they provide, with impacts on fauna, flora and human health which remain to be assessed. A major challenge at the international level is to develop more reliable quantitative risk evaluation of environmental and human health impacts as the basis for defining regulations and management strategies for sustainable agriculture, and urban and county planning.

An interdisciplinary network to better describe, evaluate, predict and mitigate the adverse side effects of contaminants mixtures at low dose with mid and long term chronic exposures.

At the territorial scale, the network aims at developing a multicriteria evaluation strategy including approaches in by combining ecotoxicological, ecological, agronomical and socio-economic approaches. In this prospect, it will build on several analytical platforms, in vitro biological models and experimental facilities available among BASC partners.

The network's actions aim at joining efforts in ecotoxicology research in the Paris region. It regularly organises, including with the support of the Ile-de-France region, scientific events to strengthen the ties between concerned scientists, foster the emergence of crosscutting multi-partners research projects and increase its visibility. As an example, the projects should allow for the development of generic approaches and tools to evaluate, understand and predict the impacts of chemical contamination of socio-agroecosystems, while including local constraints (urbanisation...) and global change (climate change, land use...).

Due to its expertise and means, the network also plays a major role in higher eductaion in ecotoxicology in the Paris region. It interacts with the Federation Ile-de-France for Research on the Environnement (FIRE) and is participating to the ongoing structuring of ecotoxicology research at the national level, in relation with toxicology. In this framework, it interacts with the INRA ecotoxicologists network, the National microbial ecotoxicology network, and the national Biology and Health Infrastructure "Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems - France" (ANAEE-France) and the PIREN-Seine...

Contacts:

Mailing list for the network members: ecobasc@inra.fr
Contact for others: contact-ecobasc@inra.fr

Interesting links:

• Federation Ile-de-France for Research on the Environnement (FIRE)
• ECOTOX, terrestrial and aquatic ecotoxicology network
• Microbial Ecotoxicology network