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Project properties |
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| Title | Effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on invertebrate populations |
| Group | Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 24-39 |
| Supervisor(s) | prof Paul van den Brink (paul.vandenbrink@wur.nl) |
| Examiner(s) | prof Marten Scheffer |
| Contact info | Edwin Peeters general information on thesis in freshwater ecology (edwin.peeters@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2017/02/01 |
| End date | 2017/12/31 |
| Description | Imidacloprid is one of the major insecticides which is used worldwide. It belongs to the family of neonicotinoid insecticides. Several studies indicate that imidacloprid is partly responsible for declining of honeybee colonies in United States in 2006 � 2007, followed by other countries. Non-targeted organisms could also be affected by imidacloprid through runoff, leaching, and spray drift into water body. It could harm aquatic organisms since imidacloprid is highly toxic for aquatic insects and several other aquatic invertebrates. Since long-term toxicity data is still scarce for invertebrates we are planning to perform long-term (6 � 12 months) population experiments with some key invertebrates (e.g. Asellus, Gammarus, Cloeon, Caenis, Chironomus). The thesis or internship could include to (partially) perform these experiments and to perform some individual level (toxicokinetic-toxicodynamic modelling) and population level (individual based modelling) modelling to assess the long-term effects of imidacloprid and other neonicotinoid insecticides. |
| Used skills | lab experiment; fieldwork; data analysis/statistics/ modelling |
| Requirements | Preferably AEW30806 Chemical Stress Ecology |