Evidenced-based approaches to support the development of endocrine-mediated Adverse Outcome Pathways: Challenges and Opportunities

Copyright: © 2021 Audouze, Zgheib, Abass, Baig, Forner-Piquer, Holbech, Knapen, Leonards, Lupu, Palaniswamy, Rautio, Sapounidou and Martin. Adverse outcome pathways (AOP) have captured the attention of regulators and researchers alike as a systematic approach for organizing toxicological knowledge. AOPs can help identify Key Events (KE) that could be targeted for the development of New Approach Methods (NAM) and fit in Integrated Approaches to Testing and Assessment, as such they are an integral part of activities within the EURION cluster of projects developing new methods to identify endocrine disrupters. Although AOP development does not currently explicitly require the use of evidence-based methods (EBM), efforts are ongoing to recommend developers document the most important aspects of their process. This perspective article draws on lessons learnt from activities within the EURION cluster to review the circumstances in which EBMs approaches may be most usefully applied to endocrine-mediated (EM) AOP development and opportunities for further research and development of tools tailored to mechanistic evidence gathering and evaluation. We argue that; (1) systematic evidence mapping may support problem formulation in complementing canonical knowledge and identifying key event relationships (KER) for which systematic review (SR) is appropriate, (2) some selected machine learning tools (MLT) are identified as suitable to support the earlier stages of SR adapted to endocrine-mediated AOP development such as problem formulation or the design of search strategies, (3) their implementation for information retrieval ought to be validated and compared with manual methods, (4) whilst the feasibility and desirability of their application to the appraisal of evidence or the evaluation strength of the overall body of evidence is not yet demonstrated.European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No. 825712 (OBERON), No. 825759 (ENDpoiNTs), No. 825489 (GOLIATH), No. 825753 (ERGO), No. 825762 (EDCMET) and No. 825161 (ATHENA) all part of the EURION cluster

Hydrogen Interaction with Dislocations in Si

An H plasma has a remarkable effect on dislocation mobility in silicon, reducing its activation energy to 1.2 eV. Applying density functional theory to the interactions of H and H? With the core of the 90 degrees partial dislocation in Si, we have identified a path for motion involving kink formation and migration at hydrogenated core bonds which conforms exactly to the experimentally measured activation energ

Validation of the OECD reproduction test guideline with the New Zealand mudsnail Potamopyrgus antipodarum using trenbolone and prochloraz

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) provides several standard test methods for the environmental hazard assessment of chemicals, mainly based on primary producers, arthropods, and fish. In April 2016, two new test guidelines with two mollusc species representing different reproductive strategies were approved by OECD member countries. One test guideline describes a 28-day reproduction test with the parthenogenetic New Zealand mudsnail Potamopyrgus antipodarum. The main endpoint of the test is reproduction, reflected by the embryo number in the brood pouch per female. The development of a new OECD test guideline involves several phases including inter-laboratory validation studies to demonstrate the robustness of the proposed test design and the reproducibility of the test results. Therefore, a ring test of the reproduction test with P. antipodarum was conducted including eight laboratories with the test substances trenbolone and prochloraz and results are presented here. Most laboratories could meet test validity criteria, thus demonstrating the robustness of the proposed test protocol. Trenbolone did not have an effect on the reproduction of the snails at the tested concentration range (nominal: 10-1000 ng/L). For prochloraz, laboratories produced similar EC10 and NOEC values, showing the inter-laboratory reproducibility of results. The average EC10 and NOEC values for reproduction (with coefficient of variation) were 26.2 µg/L (61.7%) and 29.7 µg/L (32.9%), respectively. This ring test shows that the mudsnail reproduction test is a well-suited tool for use in the chronic aquatic hazard and risk assessment of chemicals

The impact of natural resource use on bird and reptile communities within multiple-use protected areas: evidence from sub-arid southern Madagascar

Multiple-use protected areas, in which sustainable levels of extractive livelihood activities are permitted, play an increasingly important role in the global protected area estate, and are expected to rise in prevalence. However, we know little about their effectiveness at conserving biodiversity. We surveyed bird and reptile communities in three areas across a forest disturbance gradient resulting from charcoal production and shifting cultivation within a multiple-use protected area in Madagascar’s sub-arid spiny forest. We scored individual species using a Conservation Value Index (CVI; a simple metric based on rarity, threat and distinctiveness), and estimated the total conservation value of each treatment by calculating the sum of frequency-weighted CVI scores across all present species. Bird and reptile community responses to forest disturbance were idiosyncratic. Bird richness was greatest in the moderate-disturbance treatment, but the low-disturbance treatment had the superior conservation value due to higher frequencies of locally-endemic species. Reptile richness was the same in low- and moderate-disturbance treatments, but the conservation value of the latter was greater. The high-disturbance areas had lowest richness and conservation value for both groups. For birds, increasing disturbance levels were accompanied by community turnover from high-value to low-value species, a pattern highlighted by CVI that is masked by assessing species richness alone. Although some endemic species appear to be resilient to degradation, multiple-use protected areas in Madagascar may lose biodiversity since most endemic species are forest-dependent. Stricter protected area models may be more appropriate in areas where much of the high-value biodiversity is sensitive to habitat degradation

Abundance and prey capture success of Common Terns (Sterna hirundo) and Pied Kingfishers (Ceryle rudis) in relation to water clarity in south-east coastal Ghana

Abstract Background Water clarity may negatively influence rate of plunge diving and prey capture success of piscivorous plunge-diving birds, and therefore has implications for their conservation in polluted urban wetlands. We studied the relationship between water clarity and the abundance and prey capture success of Pied Kingfishers (Ceryle rudis) and Common Terns (Sterna hirundo) in two polluted coastal waters of south-east Ghana—the Weija Lake and Densu Delta Ramsar Site. Methods On each wetland, data on abundance and prey capture success of plunge-divers were collected in four spatio-temporal quadrats of 100 m × 100 m and analysed with concurrent measurements of water quality parameters using GLM regression with Pearson’s correlation coefficients. Results Mean prey capture success of Pied Kingfishers (34.7 ± 13.1%) and Common Terns (35.3 ± 11.0%) were similar but the two species responded differently to water clarity. The abundance of Common Terns was significantly higher in less transparent/more turbid water while that of Pied Kingfishers showed no significant relationship with turbidity and transparency. In contrast, the prey capture success of Common Terns was neither related to transparency nor turbidity, as opposed to that of Pied Kingfishers which was significantly higher in more turbid/less transparent waters. Correlations between capture success and bird abundance, as well as capture attempts were insignificant, suggesting that increased fish abundance associated with cloudy water may not necessarily promote higher abundance and capture success of foraging birds. Thus, when foraging in less transparent water, capture success may depend more on predator avoidance by fish prey than lower prey detectability of foraging birds. Conclusion Within a gradient of 15–51 cm transparency studied, lower water clarity did not constrain prey capture success of Common Terns and Pied Kingfishers. Further studies on the foraging ecology of plunge-divers in coastal Ghana are however required to make firm conclusions on the relationship between water clarity and foraging birds and fish prey abundances, as well as capture success