Chlordecone is an organochlorine pesticide, used in the Lesser Antilles from 1972 to 1993 to fight against a banana weevil. That molecule is very persistent in the natural environment and ends up in the sea with runoff waters. From 2003 to 2013, seven campaigns of samplings have been conducted to evaluate the level of contamination of fish, crustaceans, and mollusks. The present study is the first assessment and the first comparison of the concentrations of chlordecone between marine areas, taxonomic groups, and ecological factors like trophic groups or preferential habitat of fish species. The four most contaminated marine areas are located downstream the contaminated rivers and banana plantations. Crustaceans seemed to be more sensitive to the contamination than fish or mollusks. Finally, when comparing contamination of fish according to their ecology, we found that fish usually living at the border of mangrove and presenting detritivores-omnivores diets were the most contaminated by chlordecone. These results are particularly useful to protect the health of the local population by controlling the fishing and the commercialization of seafood products, potentially contaminated by chlordecone.

Plastiques et dérivés : quels impacts écotoxicologiques sur les écosystèmes terrestres ? . Colloque ARET 2016 : Plastiques : quels enjeux pour demain ? Pollution physico-chimique & Impacts environnementaux et sanitaires. Ecoparc Rovaltain

International audience | This the Editorial of the special issue of the journal "Environmental Science and Pollution Research" dedicated to the annual congress of the French Group on Pesticide (GFP with its initials in French) that was held in Martinique in May 2014.

Every step of microplastic analysis (collection, extraction and characterization) is time-consuming, representing an obstacle to the implementation of large scale monitoring. This study proposes a semi-automated Raman micro-spectroscopy method coupled to static image analysis that allows the screening of a large quantity of microplastic in a time-effective way with minimal machine operator intervention. The method was validated using 103 particles collected at the sea surface spiked with 7 standard plastics: morphological and chemical characterization of particles was performed in < 3 h. The method was then applied to a larger environmental sample (n = 962 particles). The identification rate was 75% and significantly decreased as a function of particle size. Microplastics represented 71% of the identified particles and significant size differences were observed: polystyrene was mainly found in the 2–5 mm range (59%), polyethylene in the 1–2 mm range (40%) and polypropylene in the 0.335–1 mm range (42%).

A 5-month experiment combining a geochemical survey of metals with a bioaccumulation study in batches of Crassostrea gigas was conducted in two shellfish farming areas and a marina in Normandy (France). Various endpoints at different levels of biological organization were studied. ROCCH data showed differences in biota contamination between the two shellfish areas but the present study revealed only slight differences in metallic contamination and biomarkers. By contrast, significantly different values were recorded in the marina in comparison with the two other sites. Indeed, higher levels of Cd, Cu and Zn were measured in the oysters from the marina, and these oysters also showed a poorer physiological condition (e.g., condition index, histopathological alterations and neutral lipid content). For coastal monitoring, the multi-biomarker approach coupled with an assessment of metallic contamination in biota appeared to be suitable for discriminating spatial differences in environmental quality after only a few months of exposure.

National audience | présentation invitée au colloque annuel de l'ARET Synthèse des travaux du Leesu sur les microplastiques en milieu urbain

Special Issue « ECOTOX, the INRA's network of ecotoxicologists »

The evaluation of the spatial representativeness of air quality monitoring stations is of fundamental relevance when observed concentration levels are used in air quality assessment. Since no reference method is provided, there is a need to develop tools for its quantitative assessment. In this paper we test a recently developed methodology for spatial representativeness area assessment, based on the analysis of time series of model concentrations by means of a Concentration Similarity Frequency (CSF) function, on the Taranto-via Machiavelli industrial monitoring station, located in a mid-size city in Southern Italy. The complex territorial context, the peculiar anthropogenic emissions features, dominated by the contribution of the largest steelworks in Europe, and the critical situation of human health in the city make this application an interesting case study to assess the portability of the CSF approach, so far applied only to background stations, to industrial sites that experience high concentration variability. A comprehensive characterization of the main anthropogenic emissions of the area was carried out, with detailed treatment of dust emission by wind erosion from industrial mineral piles; a Lagrangian modelling approach was chosen to simulate PM10 dispersion patterns, to achieve a reliable and high resolution description of concentration variability around the site. The resulting representativeness area of the station is 0.067 km², fulfilling EU prescriptions for industrial stations. The comprehensive evaluation results, through the comparison with the observed data, showed good performances pointing out the reliability of the estimated concentration fields around the site and consequently of the assessment of its representativeness area.