Inclusion of seasonal variation in river system microbial communities and phototroph activity increases environmental relevance of laboratory chemical persistence tests.

ABSTRACT: Regulatory tests assess crop protection product environmental fate and toxicity before approval for commercial use. Although globally applied laboratory tests can assess biodegradation, they lack environmental complexity. Microbial communities are subject to temporal and spatial variation, but there is little consideration of these microbial dynamics in the laboratory. Here, we investigated seasonal variation in the microbial composition of water and sediment from a UK river across a two-year time course and determined its effect on the outcome of water-sediment (OECD 308) and water-only (OECD 309) biodegradation tests, using the fungicide isopyrazam. These OECD tests are performed under dark conditions, so test systems incubated under non-UV light:dark cycles were also included to determi

SUBMITTER: Southwell RV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7298614 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature