Ecological Toxicology: Ecology

Course outline and aims Chemicals are used in consumer products and industrial processes; more than 100 000 are currently in use and roughly 70 new chemicals are described every hour. Release of chemicals to the environment is therefore inevitable. The course introduces approaches and methods to describe impacts of toxic chemicals on ecological processes and ecological communities. It comprises lectures, groupwork, exercises, seminars and an in-depth labcourse including oral presentations of their results. The course teaches ecotoxicological principles, approaches and methodology on the level of ecological communities and whole ecosystems. It will help the participant to develop a critical attitude to the field and to make the connection to lower levels of biological complexity (biochemistry, physiology, populations). The course primarily explores the subject area in the aquatic environment, but examples will also be given from terrestrial ecotoxicology. The scientific basis for applied ecotoxicology will be discussed and the course also briefly touches upon related scientific fields and applications, e.g. environmental chemistry and risk assessment of chemicals. After successful completion of the course you will have an overview of the fundamental concepts and methods in community ecotoxicology and field studies;<br> be able to critically assess the strengths and limitations of these methods and select the right approach for a given task, such as e.g. the risk assessment of a chemical in a company or the assessment of the pollution in a river at a regulatory authority;<br> gain a first understanding of typical data sets from community ecotoxicology and statistical methods for analysing them;<br> understand the implications of pollution-induced tolerance (PICT) and other community-level endpoints;<br> be able to model and assess the ecotoxicology of realistic exposure situations, i.e. mixture ecotoxicology;<br> understand the challenge of identifying causality in field and experimental studies and have an overview of approaches to tackle the problem;<br> have further improved your ability to present scientific knowledge orally and in writing;<br> have conducted experiments with ecological communities, analysed the resulting data and assessed the strengths and weaknesses of each method <br> To find current course information and schedule go to ([https://canvas.gu.se/search/all\_courses/)](<https://canvas.gu.se/search/all_courses/)>) and search for BIO430.