[Departement_IRSTEA]Ecotechnologies [TR1_IRSTEA]TED [ADD1_IRSTEA]Valoriser les effluents et déchets organiques | International audience | The main treatment technologies implemented in the French Overseas Territories are compared based on the analysis of self-monitoring database built for this study. Activated sludge is the most implemented but least reliable technology, due to sludge leakages noticeable on 10% of the campaigns. Algae growth limits facultative ponds performances. Settling troubles have been identified on rotative biological contactor. Vertical flow treatment wetlands show the best performances. Coefficient Of Reliability use and comparison with data from Brazil confirm those results.

International audience | The potential use of a metal-tolerant sunflower mutant line for biomonitoring Cu phytoavailability, Cu-induced soil phytotoxicity, and Cu phytoextraction was assessed on a Cu-contaminated soil series (13–1020 mg Cu kg−1) obtained by fading a sandy topsoil from a wood preservation site with a similar uncontaminated soil. Morphological and functional plant responses as well as shoot, leaf, and root ionomes were measured after a 1-month pot experiment. Hypocotyl length, shoot and root dry weight (DW) yields, and leaf area gradually decreased as soil Cu exposure rose. Their dose-response curves (DRC) plotted against indicators of Cu exposure were generally well fitted by sigmoidal curves. The half-maximal effective concentration (EC50) of morphological parameters ranged between 203 and 333 mg Cu kg−1 soil, corresponding to 290–430 μg Cu L−1 in the soil pore water, and 20 ± 5 mg Cu kg−1 DW in the shoots. The EC10 for shoot Cu concentration (13–15 mg Cu kg−1 DW) coincided to 166 mg Cu kg−1 soil. Total chlorophyll content and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) were early biomarkers (EC10: 23 and 51 mg Cu kg−1 soil). Their DRC displayed a biphasic response. Photosynthetic pigment contents, e.g., carotenoids, correlated with TAC. Ionome was changed in Cu-stressed roots, shoots, and leaves. Shoot Cu removal peaked roughly at 280 μg Cu L−1 in the soil pore water.

[Departement_IRSTEA]Eaux [TR1_IRSTEA]BELCA [ADD1_IRSTEA]Systèmes aquatiques soumis à des pressions multiples | International audience | Wastewater treatment plant effluents from urban area are a well-known source of chronic multiple micropollution to the downstream living organisms. In this study, ecologically relevant laboratory-bred freshwater gastropods, Lymnaea stagnalis, were exposed for 29 days to raw effluents of a wastewater treatment plant in Lyon area (France). A time-course analysis of individual markers of immunocompetence (hemocyte density and viability, hemocyte NADPH activity, phenol oxidase activity, and capacity of phagocytosis) has shown slight trends of inflammatory-like responses induced by the 100% effluents. So far, no short-term hazard for L. stagnalis can be revealed. However, over the long term, such environmental stress-stimulating immune responses could provoke deleterious life history trade-offs because the immune system is known to be highly energy-consuming.

International audience | The effectiveness of environmental protection measures is based on the early identification and diagnosis of anthropogenic pressures. Similarly, restoration actions require precise monitoring of changes in the ecological quality of ecosystems, in order to highlight their effectiveness. Monitoring the ecological quality relies on bioindicators, which are organisms revealing the pressures exerted on the environment through the composition of their communities. Their implementation, based on the morphological identification of species, is expensive because it requires time and experts in taxonomy. Recent genomic tools should provide access to reliable and high-throughput environmental monitoring by directly inferring the composition of bioindicators' communities from their DNA (metabarcoding). The French-Swiss program SYNAQUA (INTERREG France-Switzerland 2017-2019) proposes to use and validate the tools of environmental genomic for biomonitoring and aims ultimately at their implementation in the regulatory bio-surveillance. SYNAQUA will test the metabarcoding approach focusing on two bioindicators, diatoms, and aquatic oligochaetes, which are used in freshwater biomonitoring in France and Switzerland. To go towards the renewal of current biomonitoring practices, SYNAQUA will (1) bring together different actors: scientists, environmental managers, consulting firms, and biotechnological companies, (2) apply this approach on a large scale to demonstrate its relevance, (3) propose robust and reliable tools, and (4) raise public awareness and train the various actors likely to use these new tools. Biomonitoring approaches based on such environmental genomic tools should address the European need for reliable, higher-throughput monitoring to improve the protection of aquatic environments under multiple pressures, guide their restoration , and follow their evolution.

An ecosystem in a cold climate river basin is vulnerable to the effects of climate change affecting permafrost thaw and glacier retreat. We currently lack sufficient data and information if and how hydrological processes such as glacier retreat, snowmelt and freezing-thawing affect sediment and nutrient runoff and transport, as well as N₂O emissions in cold climate river basins. As such, we have implemented well-established, semi-empirical equations of nitrification and denitrification within the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), which correlate the emissions with water, sediment and nutrients. We have tested this implementation to simulate emission dynamics at three sites on the Canadian prairies. We then regionalized the optimized parameters to a SWAT model of the Athabasca River Basin (ARB), Canada, calibrated and validated for streamflow, sediment and water quality. In the base period (1990–2005), agricultural areas (2662 gN/ha/yr) constituted emission hot-spots. The spring season in agricultural areas and summer season in forest areas, constituted emission hot-moments. We found that warmer conditions (+13% to +106%) would have a greater influence on emissions than wetter conditions (−19% to +13%), and that the combined effect of wetter and warmer conditions would be more offsetting than synergetic. Our results imply that the spatiotemporal variability of N₂O emissions will depend strongly on soil water changes caused by permafrost thaw. Early snow freshet leads to spatial variability of soil erosion and nutrient runoff, as well as increases of emissions in winter and decreases in spring. Our simulations suggest crop residue management may reduce emissions by 34%, but with the mixed results reported in the literature and the soil and hydrology problems associated with stover removal more research is necessary. This modelling tool can be used to refine bottom-up emission estimations at river basin scale, test plausible management scenarios, and assess climate change impacts including climate feedback.

Copper and zinc are metals that have been traditionally thought of as past contamination legacies. However, their industrial use is still extensive and current applications (e.g. nanoparticles and antifouling paints) have become additional marine environment delivery routes. Determining a pollutant's genotoxicity is an ecotoxicological priority, but in marine benthic systems putative substances responsible for sediment genotoxicity have rarely been identified. Studies that use sediment as the delivery matrix combined with exposures over life-history relevant timescales are also missing for metals. Here we assess copper and zinc's genotoxicity by exposing the ecologically important polychaete Alitta virens to sediment spiked with environmentally relevant concentrations for 9 months. Target bioavailable sediment and subsequent porewater concentrations reflect the global contamination range for coasts, whilst tissue concentrations, although elevated, were comparable with other polychaetes. Survival generally reduced as concentrations increased, but monthly analyses show that growth was not significantly different between treatments. The differential treatment mortality may have enabled the surviving worms in the high concentration treatments to capture more food thus removing any concentration treatment effects for biomass. Using the alkaline comet assay we confirm that both metals via the sediment are genotoxic at concentrations routinely found in coastal regions and this is supported by elevated DNA damage in worms from field sites. However, combined with the growth data it also highlights the tolerance of A. virens to DNA damage. Finally, using long term (decadal) monitoring data we show stable or increasing sediment concentrations of these metals for many areas. This will potentially mean coastal sediment is a significant mutagenic hazard to the benthic community for decades to come. An urgent reappraisal of the current input sources for these ‘old pollutants’ is, therefore, required.

Hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) reduction by Geobacter sulfurreducens PCA was evaluated in batch experiments, and the form and amounts of intracellular and extra-cellular Cr(VI) reduction products were determined over time. The first-order Cr(VI) reduction rate per unit mass of cells was consistent for different initial cell concentrations, and approximately equal to (2.065 ± 0.389) x 10−9 mL CFU−1 h−1. A portion of the reduced Cr(VI) products precipitated on Geobacter cell walls as Cr(III) and was bound via carboxylate functional groups, a portion accumulated inside Geobacter cells, and another portion existed as soluble Cr(III) or organo-Cr(III) released to solution. A mass balance analysis of total chromium in aqueous media, on cell walls, and inside cells was determined as a function of time, and with different initial cell concentrations. Mass balances were between 92% and 98%, and indicated Cr(VI) reduction products accumulate more on cell walls and inside cells with time and with increasing initial cell concentration, as opposed to particulates in aqueous solution. Reduced Cr(VI) products both in solution and on cell surfaces appear to form organo-Cr(III) complexes, and our results suggest that such complexes are more stable to reoxidation than aqueous Cr(III) or Cr(OH)3. Chromium inside cells is also likely more stable to reoxidation, both because it can form organic complexes, and it is separated by the cell membrane from solution conditions. Hence, Cr(VI) reduction products in groundwater during bioremediation may become more stable against re-oxidation, and may pose a lower risk to human health, over time and with greater initial biomass densities.

Spatiotemporal resolved models were developed predicting daily fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) concentrations across Switzerland from 2003 to 2013. Relatively sparse PM₂.₅ monitoring data was supplemented by imputing PM₂.₅ concentrations at PM₁₀ sites, using PM₂.₅/PM₁₀ ratios at co-located sites. Daily PM₂.₅ concentrations were first estimated at a 1 × 1km resolution across Switzerland, using Multiangle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) spectral aerosol optical depth (AOD) data in combination with spatiotemporal predictor data in a four stage approach. Mixed effect models (1) were used to predict PM₂.₅ in cells with AOD but without PM₂.₅ measurements (2). A generalized additive mixed model with spatial smoothing was applied to generate grid cell predictions for those grid cells where AOD was missing (3). Finally, local PM₂.₅ predictions were estimated at each monitoring site by regressing the residuals from the 1 × 1km estimate against local spatial and temporal variables using machine learning techniques (4) and adding them to the stage 3 global estimates. The global (1 km) and local (100 m) models explained on average 73% of the total,71% of the spatial and 75% of the temporal variation (all cross validated) globally and on average 89% (total) 95% (spatial) and 88% (temporal) of the variation locally in measured PM₂.₅ concentrations.

Moss (as a reference material) and camphor (Cinnamomum Camphora) leaf, branch bark and bark samples were systematically collected across an urban-rural gradient in Guiyang (SW China) to determine the efficacy of using these bio-indicators to evaluate nitrogen (N) pollution. The tissue N concentrations (0.13%–2.70%) and δ¹⁵N values (−7.5‰ to +9.3‰) of all of these bio-indicators exhibited large spatial variations, as they recorded higher values in urban areas that quickly decreased with distance from the city center; moreover, both soil N concentrations and soil δ¹⁵N values were found no significant differences within each 6 km from the urban to the rural area. This not only suggests that the different N uptake strategies and variety of N responses of these bio-indicators can be reflected by their different susceptibilities to variations in N deposition but also reveals that they are able to indicate that urban N deposition is mostly from traffic and industry (NOₓ-N), whereas rural N deposition is mainly from agriculture (NHₓ-N). Compared to previously collected urban moss and camphor leaf samples, the significantly increased δ¹⁵N values in current urban moss and camphor leaf samples further indicate a greater contribution of NOₓ-N than NHₓ-N to urban N deposition. The feasibility of using the N concentrations and δ¹⁵N values of branch bark and bark as biomarkers of N deposition thus was further confirmed through the comparative use of these bio-indicators. It can be concluded that vascular plant leaves, branch bark and bark can be used as useful biomonitoring tools for evaluating atmospheric N pollution. For further study, quantitative criteria for the practical use of these bio-indicators in response to N deposition should be developed and the differences in the δ¹⁵N values of different plant parts should also be considered, particularly in urban environments that are severely disrupted by atmospheric pollution.

Mercury (Hg) is a persistent and widespread heavy metal with neurotoxic effects in wildlife. While bioaccumulation of Hg has historically been studied in aquatic food webs, terrestrial consumers can become contaminated with Hg when they feed on aquatic organisms (e.g., emergent aquatic insects, fish, and amphibians). However, the extent to which dietary connectivity to aquatic ecosystems can explain patterns of Hg bioaccumulation in terrestrial consumers has not been well studied. Bats (Order: Chiroptera) can serve as a model system for illuminating the trophic transfer of Hg given their high dietary diversity and foraging links to both aquatic and terrestrial food webs. Here we quantitatively characterize the dietary correlates of long-term exposure to Hg across a diverse local assemblage of bats in Belize and more globally across bat species from around the world with a comparative analysis of hair samples. Our data demonstrate considerable interspecific variation in hair total Hg concentrations in bats that span three orders of magnitude across species, ranging from 0.04 mg/kg in frugivorous bats (Artibeus spp.) to 145.27 mg/kg in the piscivorous Noctilio leporinus. Hg concentrations showed strong phylogenetic signal and were best explained by dietary connectivity of bat species to aquatic food webs. Our results highlight that phylogeny can be predictive of Hg concentrations through similarity in diet and how interspecific variation in feeding strategies influences chronic exposure to Hg and enables movement of contaminants from aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems.