20 research outputs found
An update of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on systemic insecticides. Part 2: impacts on organisms and ecosystems
New information on the lethal and sublethal effects of neonicotinoids and fipronil on organisms is presented in this review, complementing the previous WIA in 2015. The high toxicity of these systemic insecticides to invertebrates has been confirmed and expanded to include more species and compounds. Most of the recent research has focused on bees and the sublethal and ecological impacts these insecticides have on pollinators. Toxic effects on other invertebrate taxa also covered predatory and parasitoid natural enemies and aquatic arthropods. Little, while not much new information has been gathered on soil organisms. The impact on marine coastal ecosystems is still largely uncharted. The chronic lethality of neonicotinoids to insects and crustaceans, and the strengthened evidence that these chemicals also impair the immune system and reproduction, highlights the dangers of this particular insecticidal classneonicotinoids and fipronil. , withContinued large scale – mostly prophylactic – use of these persistent organochlorine pesticides has the potential to greatly decreasecompletely eliminate populations of arthropods in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Sublethal effects on fish, reptiles, frogs, birds and mammals are also reported, showing a better understanding of the mechanisms of toxicity of these insecticides in vertebrates, and their deleterious impacts on growth, reproduction and neurobehaviour of most of the species tested. This review concludes with a summary of impacts on the ecosystem services and functioning, particularly on pollination, soil biota and aquatic invertebrate communities, thus reinforcing the previous WIA conclusions (van der Sluijs et al. 2015)
Impact of cross-section uncertainties on supernova neutrino spectral parameter fitting in the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment
A primary goal of the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is
to measure the MeV neutrinos produced by a Galactic
core-collapse supernova if one should occur during the lifetime of the
experiment. The liquid-argon-based detectors planned for DUNE are expected to
be uniquely sensitive to the component of the supernova flux, enabling
a wide variety of physics and astrophysics measurements. A key requirement for
a correct interpretation of these measurements is a good understanding of the
energy-dependent total cross section for charged-current
absorption on argon. In the context of a simulated extraction of
supernova spectral parameters from a toy analysis, we investigate the
impact of modeling uncertainties on DUNE's supernova neutrino
physics sensitivity for the first time. We find that the currently large
theoretical uncertainties on must be substantially reduced
before the flux parameters can be extracted reliably: in the absence of
external constraints, a measurement of the integrated neutrino luminosity with
less than 10\% bias with DUNE requires to be known to about 5%.
The neutrino spectral shape parameters can be known to better than 10% for a
20% uncertainty on the cross-section scale, although they will be sensitive to
uncertainties on the shape of . A direct measurement of
low-energy -argon scattering would be invaluable for improving the
theoretical precision to the needed level.Comment: 25 pages, 21 figure