Researchers from the University of Coimbra received two million euros to monitor biodiversity in representative agricultural landscapes in Europe and provide information to make the evaluation of pesticide risk in Europe more realistic.
José Paulo Sousa, professor at the Department of Life Sciences and researcher at the Center for Functional Ecology, is the coordinator of the University of Coimbra (UC) of the international project “EESE – EU Environmental scenarios for ERA of non-target organisms,” he reported. the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC), in a statement sent this Monday to the Lusa agency.
“This project aims to obtain data on the biodiversity of different groups of terrestrial organisms at the European level (soil organisms, arthropods, auxiliaries, vertebrates and plants), as well as contribute to improving and making the risk assessment of phytosanitary products more realistic(PF)”, stated the expert, quoted in the statement.
In the European Union (EU), he continued, “Guidance documents guiding the approval and registration of FPs are outdated for some groups of organizations.particularly at the level of terrestrial ecosystems”, therefore it is necessary to update these documents, making the risk assessment scheme more solid and realistic.
According to José Paulo Sousa, to achieve this objective It is necessary to know what to protect when a pesticide reaches the environment or what risks are or are not acceptable from an ecological point of viewThat is, protection objectives must be defined.
In that sense, “it is necessary to define the ecological scenarios of a certain agricultural or agroforestry landscape area in which pesticides or pharmaceutical products are used, as well as knowing the biodiversity in terms of fauna and flora, particularly vulnerable species,” he highlighted.
The team of researchers from the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra will begin field work next year.
“We will monitor terrestrial ecosystems in spring, summer and autumn, including soil organisms, invertebrates, vertebrates and plants and obtain data on richness and/or biodiversity that, together with the composition and structure of the landscapes to be sampled, we can contribute to the construction of the aforementioned representative ecological scenarios that will be used in the PF risk assessment process,” the researcher concluded.
In addition to leading all parts of the Monitor and evaluate the biodiversity of different groups in the field.In landscape areas/scenarios spread across Europe, experts will also assess the sensitivity of different species of terrestrial organisms following a New approach to evaluate effects at the community level of soil organisms..
The EESE project will last four years and is part of a strategic line of the European Food Safety Authority that aims to highlight the ecological relevance in the risk assessment of pesticides.
Source: Observadora
