Environmental stress enhances the effects of pollutants
Wednesday, September 21, 2016 - 06:31
in Earth & Climate
Each and every organism on Earth is exposed to the influence of various environmental conditions and of other living organisms. These factors can trigger stress and make the living organism more vulnerable to external influences. A team headed by researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research has now succeeded in using aquatic organisms to demonstrate that the presence of environmental stress multiplies the effects of pollutants on organisms. Furthermore, they have developed a model that makes it possible to use the intensity of the environmental stress as a basis to predict the increased impact of pollutants. They published their findings in the Scientific Reports journal.