Contents:
This course focuses on the fate of toxic compounds and their effects on populations and ecosystems. It deals with the assessment of both exposure and ecological effects, and their interconnection. Main subjects are exposure on higher biological organisation levels, ecological effects, bio-monitoring, risk assessment of anthropogenic stressors and natural stressors like cyanotoxins, and multiple stresses.
Learning outcomes:
After successful completion of this course students are expected to be able to:
- perform ecotoxicological toxicity and bioassay experiments with non-standard test species;
- interpret the results of chemical fate and eco(toxico)logical models;
- perform microcosm and mesocosm experiment to evaluate effects on a food-web and interpret its results;
- perform an advanced multivariate data analysis on chemical and biological monitoring data;
- design, perform and evaluate your own experiment to test a self-formulated hypothesis;
- conceptualise and organise experimental work and its interpretation as a group.
