Chemical effects on ecological interactions within a model-experiment loop

We propose in this paper a method to assess the effects of a contaminant on a micro-ecosystem, integrating the population dynamics and the interactions between species. For that, we developed a dynamic model to describe the functioning of a microcosm exposed to a contaminant and to discriminate direct and indirect effects. Then, we get back from modelling to experimentation in order to identify which of the collected data have really been necessary and sufficient to estimate model parameters in order to propose a more efficient experimental design for further investigations. We illustrated our approach using a 2-L laboratory microcosm involving three species (the duckweed Lemna minor, the microalgae Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata and the daphnids Daphnia magna) exposed to cadmium contamination. We modelled the dynamics of the three species and their interactions using a mechanistic model based on coupled ordinary differential equations. The main processes occurring in this three-species microcosm were thus formalized, including growth and settling of algae, growth of duckweeds, interspecific competition between algae and duckweeds, growth, survival and grazing of daphnids, as well as cadmium effects. We estimated model parameters by Bayesian inference, using simultaneously all the data issued from multiple laboratory experiments specifically conducted for this study. Cadmium concentrations ranged between 0 and 50 μg.L-1 . For all parameters of our model, we obtained biologically realistic values and reasonable uncertainties. The cascade of cadmium effects, both direct and indirect, was identified. Critical effect concentrations were provided for the life history traits of each species. An example of experimental design adapted to this kind a microcosm was also proposed. This approach appears promising when studying contaminant effects on ecosystem functioning

Errors in RNA-Seq quantification affect genes of relevance to human disease

BACKGROUND: RNA-Seq has emerged as the standard for measuring gene expression and is an important technique often used in studies of human disease. Gene expression quantification involves comparison of the sequenced reads to a known genomic or transcriptomic reference. The accuracy of that quantification relies on there being enough unique information in the reads to enable bioinformatics tools to accurately assign the reads to the correct gene. RESULTS: We apply 12 common methods to estimate gene expression from RNA-Seq data and show that there are hundreds of genes whose expression is underestimated by one or more of those methods. Many of these genes have been implicated in human disease, and we describe their roles. We go on to propose a two-stage analysis of RNA-Seq data in which multi-mapped or ambiguous reads can instead be uniquely assigned to groups of genes. We apply this method to a recently published mouse cancer study, and demonstrate that we can extract relevant biological signal from data that would otherwise have been discarded. CONCLUSIONS: For hundreds of genes in the human genome, RNA-Seq is unable to measure expression accurately. These genes are enriched for gene families, and many of them have been implicated in human disease. We show that it is possible to use data that may otherwise have been discarded to measure group-level expression, and that such data contains biologically relevant information. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13059-015-0734-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Taking the pulse of Earth's tropical forests using networks of highly distributed plots

Tropical forests are the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. While better understanding of these forests is critical for our collective future, until quite recently efforts to measure and monitor them have been largely disconnected. Networking is essential to discover the answers to questions that transcend borders and the horizons of funding agencies. Here we show how a global community is responding to the challenges of tropical ecosystem research with diverse teams measuring forests tree-by-tree in thousands of long-term plots. We review the major scientific discoveries of this work and show how this process is changing tropical forest science. Our core approach involves linking long-term grassroots initiatives with standardized protocols and data management to generate robust scaled-up results. By connecting tropical researchers and elevating their status, our Social Research Network model recognises the key role of the data originator in scientific discovery. Conceived in 1999 with RAINFOR (South America), our permanent plot networks have been adapted to Africa (AfriTRON) and Southeast Asia (T-FORCES) and widely emulated worldwide. Now these multiple initiatives are integrated via ForestPlots.net cyber-infrastructure, linking colleagues from 54 countries across 24 plot networks. Collectively these are transforming understanding of tropical forests and their biospheric role. Together we have discovered how, where and why forest carbon and biodiversity are responding to climate change, and how they feedback on it. This long-term pan-tropical collaboration has revealed a large long-term carbon sink and its trends, as well as making clear which drivers are most important, which forest processes are affected, where they are changing, what the lags are, and the likely future responses of tropical forests as the climate continues to change. By leveraging a remarkably old technology, plot networks are sparking a very modern revolution in tropical forest science. In the future, humanity can benefit greatly by nurturing the grassroots communities now collectively capable of generating unique, long-term understanding of Earth's most precious forests.Additional co-authors: Susan Laurance, William Laurance, Francoise Yoko Ishida, Andrew Marshall, Catherine Waite, Hannsjoerg Woell, Jean-Francois Bastin, Marijn Bauters, Hans Beeckman, Pfascal Boeckx, Jan Bogaert, Charles De Canniere, Thales de Haulleville, Jean-Louis Doucet, Olivier Hardy, Wannes Hubau, Elizabeth Kearsley, Hans Verbeeck, Jason Vleminckx, Steven W. Brewer, Alfredo Alarcón, Alejandro Araujo-Murakami, Eric Arets, Luzmila Arroyo, Ezequiel Chavez, Todd Fredericksen, René Guillén Villaroel, Gloria Gutierrez Sibauty, Timothy Killeen, Juan Carlos Licona, John Lleigue, Casimiro Mendoza, Samaria Murakami, Alexander Parada Gutierrez, Guido Pardo, Marielos Peña-Claros, Lourens Poorter, Marisol Toledo, Jeanneth Villalobos Cayo, Laura Jessica Viscarra, Vincent Vos, Jorge Ahumada, Everton Almeida, Jarcilene Almeida, Edmar Almeida de Oliveira, Wesley Alves da Cruz, Atila Alves de Oliveira, Fabrício Alvim Carvalho, Flávio Amorim Obermuller, Ana Andrade, Fernanda Antunes Carvalho, Simone Aparecida Vieira, Ana Carla Aquino, Luiz Aragão, Ana Claudia Araújo, Marco Antonio Assis, Jose Ataliba Mantelli Aboin Gomes, Fabrício Baccaro, Plínio Barbosa de Camargo, Paulo Barni, Jorcely Barroso, Luis Carlos Bernacci, Kauane Bordin, Marcelo Brilhante de Medeiros, Igor Broggio, José Luís Camargo, Domingos Cardoso, Maria Antonia Carniello, Andre Luis Casarin Rochelle, Carolina Castilho, Antonio Alberto Jorge Farias Castro, Wendeson Castro, Sabina Cerruto Ribeiro, Flávia Costa, Rodrigo Costa de Oliveira, Italo Coutinho, John Cunha, Lola da Costa, Lucia da Costa Ferreira, Richarlly da Costa Silva, Marta da Graça Zacarias Simbine, Vitor de Andrade Kamimura, Haroldo Cavalcante de Lima, Lia de Oliveira Melo, Luciano de Queiroz, José Romualdo de Sousa Lima, Mário do Espírito Santo, Tomas Domingues, Nayane Cristina dos Santos Prestes, Steffan Eduardo Silva Carneiro, Fernando Elias, Gabriel Eliseu, Thaise Emilio, Camila Laís Farrapo, Letícia Fernandes, Gustavo Ferreira, Joice Ferreira, Leandro Ferreira, Socorro Ferreira, Marcelo Fragomeni Simon, Maria Aparecida Freitas, Queila S. García, Angelo Gilberto Manzatto, Paulo Graça, Frederico Guilherme, Eduardo Hase, Niro Higuchi, Mariana Iguatemy, Reinaldo Imbrozio Barbosa, Margarita Jaramillo, Carlos Joly, Joice Klipel, Iêda Leão do Amaral, Carolina Levis, Antonio S. Lima, Maurício Lima Dan, Aline Lopes, Herison Madeiros, William E. Magnusson, Rubens Manoel dos Santos, Beatriz Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon Junior, Roberta Marotti Martelletti Grillo, Luiz Martinelli, Simone Matias Reis, Salomão Medeiros, Milton Meira-Junior, Thiago Metzker, Paulo Morandi, Natanael Moreira do Nascimento, Magna Moura, Sandra Cristina Müller, Laszlo Nagy, Henrique Nascimento, Marcelo Nascimento, Adriano Nogueira Lima, Raimunda Oliveira de Araújo, Jhonathan Oliveira Silva, Marcelo Pansonato, Gabriel Pavan Sabino, Karla Maria Pedra de Abreu, Pablo José Francisco Pena Rodrigues, Maria Piedade, Domingos Rodrigues, José Roberto Rodrigues Pinto, Carlos Quesada, Eliana Ramos, Rafael Ramos, Priscyla Rodrigues, Thaiane Rodrigues de Sousa, Rafael Salomão, Flávia Santana, Marcos Scaranello, Rodrigo Scarton Bergamin, Juliana Schietti, Jochen Schöngart, Gustavo Schwartz, Natalino Silva, Marcos Silveira, Cristiana Simão Seixas, Marta Simbine, Ana Claudia Souza, Priscila Souza, Rodolfo Souza, Tereza Sposito, Edson Stefani Junior, Julio Daniel do Vale, Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira, Dora Villela, Marcos Vital, Haron Xaud, Katia Zanini, Charles Eugene Zartman, Nur Khalish Hafizhah Ideris, Faizah binti Hj Metali, Kamariah Abu Salim, Muhd Shahruney Saparudin, Rafizah Mat Serudin, Rahayu Sukmaria Sukri, Serge Begne, George Chuyong, Marie Noel Djuikouo, Christelle Gonmadje, Murielle Simo-Droissart, Bonaventure Sonké, Hermann Taedoumg, Lise Zemagho, Sean Thomas, Fidèle Baya, Gustavo Saiz, Javier Silva Espejo, Dexiang Chen, Alan Hamilton, Yide Li, Tushou Luo, Shukui Niu, Han Xu, Zhang Zhou, Esteban Álvarez-Dávila, Juan Carlos Andrés Escobar, Henry Arellano-Peña, Jaime Cabezas Duarte, Jhon Calderón, Lina Maria Corrales Bravo, Borish Cuadrado, Hermes Cuadros, Alvaro Duque, Luisa Fernanda Duque, Sandra Milena Espinosa, Rebeca Franke-Ante, Hernando García, Alejandro Gómez, Roy González-M., Álvaro Idárraga-Piedrahíta, Eliana Jimenez, Rubén Jurado, Wilmar López Oviedo, René López-Camacho, Omar Aurelio Melo Cruz, Irina Mendoza Polo, Edwin Paky, Karen Pérez, Angel Pijachi, Camila Pizano, Adriana Prieto, Laura Ramos, Zorayda Restrepo Correa, James Richardson, Elkin Rodríguez, Gina M. Rodriguez M., Agustín Rudas, Pablo Stevenson, Markéta Chudomelová, Martin Dancak, Radim Hédl, Stanislav Lhota, Martin Svatek, Jacques Mukinzi, Corneille Ewango, Terese Hart, Emmanuel Kasongo Yakusu, Janvier Lisingo, Jean-Remy Makana, Faustin Mbayu, Benjamin Toirambe, John Tshibamba Mukendi, Lars Kvist, Gustav Nebel, Selene Báez, Carlos Céron, Daniel M. Griffith, Juan Ernesto Guevara Andino, David Neill, Walter Palacios, Maria Cristina Peñuela-Mora, Gonzalo Rivas-Torres, Gorky Villa, Sheleme Demissie, Tadesse Gole, Techane Gonfa, Kalle Ruokolainen, Michel Baisie, Fabrice Bénédet, Wemo Betian, Vincent Bezard, Damien Bonal, Jerôme Chave, Vincent Droissart, Sylvie Gourlet-Fleury, Annette Hladik, Nicolas Labrière, Pétrus Naisso, Maxime Réjou-Méchain, Plinio Sist, Lilian Blanc, Benoit Burban, Géraldine Derroire, Aurélie Dourdain, Clement Stahl, Natacha Nssi Bengone, Eric Chezeaux, Fidèle Evouna Ondo, Vincent Medjibe, Vianet Mihindou, Lee White, Heike Culmsee, Cristabel Durán Rangel, Viviana Horna, Florian Wittmann, Stephen Adu-Bredu, Kofi Affum-Baffoe, Ernest Foli, Michael Balinga, Anand Roopsind, James Singh, Raquel Thomas, Roderick Zagt, Indu K. Murthy, Kuswata Kartawinata, Edi Mirmanto, Hari Priyadi, Ismayadi Samsoedin, Terry Sunderland, Ishak Yassir, Francesco Rovero, Barbara Vinceti, Bruno Hérault, Shin-Ichiro Aiba, Kanehiro Kitayama, Armandu Daniels, Darlington Tuagben, John T. Woods, Muhammad Fitriadi, Alexander Karolus, Kho Lip Khoon, Noreen Majalap, Colin Maycock, Reuben Nilus, Sylvester Tan, Almeida Sitoe, Indiana Coronado G., Lucas Ojo, Rafael de Assis, Axel Dalberg Poulsen, Douglas Sheil, Karen Arévalo Pezo, Hans Buttgenbach Verde, Victor Chama Moscoso, Jimmy Cesar Cordova Oroche, Fernando Cornejo Valverde, Massiel Corrales Medina, Nallaret Davila Cardozo, Jano de Rutte Corzo, Jhon del Aguila Pasquel, Gerardo Flores Llampazo, Luis Freitas, Darcy Galiano Cabrera, Roosevelt García Villacorta, Karina Garcia Cabrera, Diego García Soria, Leticia Gatica Saboya, Julio Miguel Grandez Rios, Gabriel Hidalgo Pizango, Eurídice Honorio Coronado, Isau Huamantupa-Chuquimaco, Walter Huaraca Huasco, Yuri Tomas Huillca Aedo, Jose Luis Marcelo Peña, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Vanesa Moreano Rodriguez, Percy Núñez Vargas, Sonia Cesarina Palacios Ramos, Nadir Pallqui Camacho, Antonio Peña Cruz, Freddy Ramirez Arevalo, José Reyna Huaymacari, Carlos Reynel Rodriguez, Marcos Antonio Ríos Paredes, Lily Rodriguez Bayona, Rocio del Pilar Rojas Gonzales, Maria Elena Rojas Peña, Norma Salinas Revilla, Yahn Carlos Soto Shareva, Raul Tupayachi Trujillo, Luis Valenzuela Gamarra, Rodolfo Vasquez Martinez, Jim Vega Arenas, Christian Amani, Suspense Averti Ifo, Yannick Bocko, Patrick Boundja, Romeo Ekoungoulou, Mireille Hockemba, Donatien Nzala, Alusine Fofanah, David Taylor, Guillermo Bañares-de Dios, Luis Cayuela, Íñigo Granzow-de la Cerda, Manuel Macía, Juliana Stropp, Maureen Playfair, Verginia Wortel, Toby Gardner, Robert Muscarella, Hari Priyadi, Ervan Rutishauser, Kuo-Jung Chao, Pantaleo Munishi, Olaf Bánki, Frans Bongers, Rene Boot, Gabriella Fredriksson, Jan Reitsma, Hans ter Steege, Tinde van Andel, Peter van de Meer, Peter van der Hout, Mark van Nieuwstadt, Bert van Ulft, Elmar Veenendaal, Ronald Vernimmen, Pieter Zuidema, Joeri Zwerts, Perpetra Akite, Robert Bitariho, Colin Chapman, Eilu Gerald, Miguel Leal, Patrick Mucunguzi, Miguel Alexiades, Timothy R. Baker, Karina Banda, Lindsay Banin, Jos Barlow, Amy Bennett, Erika Berenguer, Nicholas Berry, Neil M. Bird, George A. Blackburn, Francis Brearley, Roel Brienen, David Burslem, Lidiany Carvalho, Percival Cho, Fernanda Coelho, Murray Collins, David Coomes, Aida Cuni-Sanchez, Greta Dargie, Kyle Dexter, Mat Disney, Freddie Draper, Muying Duan, Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert, Robert Ewers, Belen Fadrique, Sophie Fauset, Ted R. Feldpausch, Filipe França, David Galbraith, Martin Gilpin, Emanuel Gloor, John Grace, Keith Hamer, David Harris, Tommaso Jucker, Michelle Kalamandeen, Bente Klitgaard, Aurora Levesley, Simon L. Lewis, Jeremy Lindsell, Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez, Jon Lovett, Yadvinder Malhi, Toby Marthews, Emma McIntosh, Karina Melgaço, William Milliken, Edward Mitchard, Peter Moonlight, Sam Moore, Alexandra Morel, Julie Peacock, Kelvin Peh, Colin Pendry, R. Toby Pennington, Luciana de Oliveira Pereira, Carlos Peres, Oliver L. Phillips, Georgia Pickavance, Thomas Pugh, Lan Qie, Terhi Riutta, Katherine Roucoux, Casey Ryan, Tiina Sarkinen, Camila Silva Valeria, Dominick Spracklen, Suzanne Stas, Martin Sullivan, Michael Swaine, Joey Talbot, James Taplin, Geertje van der Heijden, Laura Vedovato, Simon Willcock, Mathew Williams, Luciana Alves, Patricia Alvarez Loayza, Gabriel Arellano, Cheryl Asa, Peter Ashton, Gregory Asner, Terry Brncic, Foster Brown, Robyn Burnham, Connie Clark, James Comiskey, Gabriel Damasco, Stuart Davies, Tony Di Fiore, Terry Erwin, William Farfan-Rios, Jefferson Hall, David Kenfack, Thomas Lovejoy, Roberta Martin, Olga Martha Montiel, John Pipoly, Nigel Pitman, John Poulsen, Richard Primack, Miles Silman, Marc Steininger, Varun Swamy, John Terborgh, Duncan Thomas, Peter Umunay, Maria Uriarte, Emilio Vilanova Torre, Ophelia Wang, Kenneth Young, Gerardo A. Aymard C., Lionel Hernández, Rafael Herrera Fernández, Hirma Ramírez-Angulo, Pedro Salcedo, Elio Sanoja, Julio Serrano, Armando Torres-Lezama, Tinh Cong Le, Trai Trong Le, Hieu Dang Tra

COVID-19 symptoms at hospital admission vary with age and sex: results from the ISARIC prospective multinational observational study

Background: The ISARIC prospective multinational observational study is the largest cohort of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. We present relationships of age, sex, and nationality to presenting symptoms. Methods: International, prospective observational study of 60 109 hospitalized symptomatic patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 recruited from 43 countries between 30 January and 3 August 2020. Logistic regression was performed to evaluate relationships of age and sex to published COVID-19 case definitions and the most commonly reported symptoms. Results: ‘Typical’ symptoms of fever (69%), cough (68%) and shortness of breath (66%) were the most commonly reported. 92% of patients experienced at least one of these. Prevalence of typical symptoms was greatest in 30- to 60-year-olds (respectively 80, 79, 69%; at least one 95%). They were reported less frequently in children (≤ 18 years: 69, 48, 23; 85%), older adults (≥ 70 years: 61, 62, 65; 90%), and women (66, 66, 64; 90%; vs. men 71, 70, 67; 93%, each P < 0.001). The most common atypical presentations under 60 years of age were nausea and vomiting and abdominal pain, and over 60 years was confusion. Regression models showed significant differences in symptoms with sex, age and country. Interpretation: This international collaboration has allowed us to report reliable symptom data from the largest cohort of patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Adults over 60 and children admitted to hospital with COVID-19 are less likely to present with typical symptoms. Nausea and vomiting are common atypical presentations under 30 years. Confusion is a frequent atypical presentation of COVID-19 in adults over 60 years. Women are less likely to experience typical symptoms than men

Dynamique d'un système hôte-parasitoïde en environnement spatialement hétérogène et lutte biologique Application au puceron Aphis gossypii et au parasitoïde Lysiphlebus testaceipes en serre de melons

Natural ecosystems are unavoidably spatially structured and the induced heterogeneity affects various processes of ecological systems. In many cases, the influence of spatial heterogeneity on population dynamics remains unclear. This thesis contributes to a better theoretical understanding of the effects of such heterogeneity on host-parasitoid interactions. In this way, three spatial approaches were developed and adapted to the aphid pest Aphis gossypii and one of its parasitoids Lysiphlebus testaceipes in a melon greenhouse. The importance of spatial structure was tested by comparing a non-spatial model with a spatially explicit model (a lattice one). Our results showed that considering space is essential to describe the spatial heterogeneous distribution of populations observed in the field. The way in which space should be considered was tested by comparing the spatially explicit model with a new implicit approach, which describes the level of plant infestation by a continuous variable corresponding to the number of plants with a given density of pests at a given time. When the explicit model needs as many equations as plants in the greenshouse, our novel approach has only a partial differential equation. We could infer from the comparisons between the two spatial models that the predicted host-parasitoid dynamics were similar under most conditions; and the differences were due to local dispersal (considered only in the explicit model), because it could have a strong impact on population dynamics but did not change the conclusions for crop protection. The new implicit model thus generated relevant predictions with a more synthetic formalism than the common plant-by-plant model. This implicit model was used to test biological control strategies. We showed that (i) preventive releases are less efficient than curative ones, if the cost of infestation detection is not too high; (ii) strategies with several releases are always better than single releases strategies. As a conclusion, we demonstrated that the effectiveness of a biological control depends on the functional response of the parasitoids, the initial distribution of pests (that determines the infestation process) and the costs affected to each type of strategies.Tous les écosystèmes naturels sont indéniablement structurés spatialement et l'hétérogénéité induite affecte divers processus des systèmes écologiques. Dans certains cas, l'influence de l'hétérogénéité spatiale sur les dynamiques de populations reste à préciser. Cette thèse contribue à mieux comprendre, de manière théorique, les effets d'une telle hétérogénéité sur les interactions hôte-parasitoïde. Pour cela, trois approches spatialisées ont été développées et adaptées au puceron ravageur Aphis gossypii et à un de ses parasitoïdes Lysiphlebus testaceipes en serre de melons. L'importance de la structure spatiale a été testée en comparant un modèle non spatialisé à un modèle spatialement explicite. Nos résultats ont montré que considérer l'espace est essentiel pour décrire la distribution hétérogène des populations observée sur le terrain. La manière de considérer la structure spatiale a été testée en comparant le modèle spatialement explicite à une nouvelle approche, implicite, qui décrit le niveau d'infestation des plants par une variable continue correspondant au nombre de plants ayant une certaine densité en ravageurs à un instant donné. Alors que le modèle explicite nécessite autant d'équations qu'il y a de plants dans la serre pour décrire les pucerons sains, notre nouvelle approche utilise seulement une équation aux dérivées partielles. La comparaison entre les deux modèles spatialisés a montré que : (i) les dynamiques hôte-parasitoïde prédites sont similaires dans la plupart des cas ; (ii) les différences observées sont dues à la dispersion locale (considérée seulement dans le modèle explicite), car elle peut avoir un impact important sur les dynamiques de population, mais sans changer les conclusions concernant la protection de la culture. La nouvelle approche implicite a donc généré des prédictions réalistes avec un formalisme plus synthétique que le modèle commun plant par plant. Le modèle implicite a donc été utilisé pour tester différentes stratégies de lutte biologique. Nous avons montré que : (i) les lâchers préventifs sont moins efficaces que les lâchers curatifs, à condition que la détection de l'infestation ne soit pas trop coûteuse ; (ii) les stratégies à lâchers multiples sont toujours plus avantageuses que les stratégies à lâcher unique. Nous montrons que l'efficacité d'une stratégie de lutte biologique dépend de la réponse fonctionnelle des parasitoïdes, de la distribution initiale des ravageurs (qui détermine le processus d'infestation), et des coûts affectés à chaque type de stratégies. Mots clés: hétérogénéité spatiale, modèle hôte-parasitoïde spatialement implicite, dispersion, stratégies de contrôle biologique, coûts de lutte

Dynamique d un système hôte-parasitoïde en environnement spatialement hétérogène et lutte biologique (application au puceron Aphis gossypii et au parasitoïde Lysiphlebus testaceipes en serre de melons)

PARIS-AgroParisTech Centre Paris (751052302) / SudocSudocFranceF

Improvements in Estimating Bioaccumulation Metrics in the Light of Toxicokinetic Models and Bayesian Inference

International audienceThe surveillance of chemical substances in the scope of Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) is classically performed through bio-assays from which data are collected and then analysed and/or modelled. Some analysis are based on the fitting of toxicokinetic (TK) models to assess the bioaccumulation capacity of chemical substances via the estimation of bioaccumulation metrics as required by regulatory documents. Given that bio-assays are particularly expensive and time consuming, it is of crucial importance to deeply benefit from all information contained in the data. By revisiting the calculation of bioaccumulation metrics under a Bayesian framework, this paper suggests changes in the way of characterising the bioaccumulation capacity of chemical substances. For this purpose, a meta-analysis of a data-rich TK database was performed, considering uncertainties around bioaccumulation metrics. Our results were statistically robust enough to suggest an additional criterion to the single median estimate of bioaccumulation metrics to assign a chemical substance to a given bioaccumulation capacity. Our proposal is to use the 75th percentile of the uncertainty interval of the bioaccumulation metrics, which revealed an appropriate complement for the classification of chemical substances (e.g. PBT (persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic) and vPvB (very persistent and very bioaccumulative) under the EU chemicals legislation). The 75% quantile proved its efficiency, similarly classifying 90% of the chemical substances as the conventional method

Comparison of spatially implicit and explicit approaches to model plant infestation by insect pests

International audienc