Finalist in the International French-Speaking Contest "Ma thèse en 180 secondes", Lyon 2025 Edition

Highlights

Ecotoxicity ; sediments ; Gammarus fossarum 

Abstract

Sediments represent an ecologically important compartment of water bodies, particularly in terms of habitat and food production. However, they also act as a reservoir for both temporary and permanent contamination by many chemical compounds, including inorganic, organic, persistent, and/or emerging substances, posing significant toxicity risks to the species that live in them¹. They also present challenges for their management, especially in dredging operations². In terms of aquatic environment monitoring, sediments have the advantage of integrating the contamination that the environment receives over time. This is a significant asset for assessing the quality of ecosystems and for understanding the chemical pressures on environments over time,³ as well as evaluating the beneficial effects of remediation efforts in degraded aquatic systems^4,5.

In this context, several standardized bioassays have been developed to assess sediment toxicity, using raw sediment or aqueous extracts such as interstitial water or elutriates, and involving a wide range of species.

Among these species, amphipods are widely used because they are not or only minimally sensitive to many confounding factors such as sediment granulometry and organic matter content^6,7. However, in freshwater environments, standardized protocols are only available for the species Hyalella azteca, an amphipod from North America that is not found in France or Europe. Although European species such as Gammarus fossarum and Gammarus pulex are widely used in aquatic ecotoxicology, they are almost never used to assess sediment toxicity^8,9. G. fossarum , in particular, has a very large distribution range, being found almost throughout Europe. It is widely used to evaluate the toxicity of chemical contaminants in aquatic environments through laboratory exposures^10–13 field studies involving cage experiments^14–18. This species is also used nationally by water agencies to assess chemical contamination and toxicity in water bodies, using standardized protocols for cage experiments and measuring several toxicity markers (Afnor-NF T90-721 and Afnor-XP T90-722).

The challenge here is to develop and propose one or more new bioassays for assessing the toxicity of freshwater sediments, incorporating species that are present in European aquatic systems. Specifically, this involves using the amphipod Gammarus fossarum and adapting the existing and standardized methodologies to measure various toxicity markers such as survival, feeding rate, and reproduction.

Funding

BIOMAE

References

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Communication

• Webinaire H20 Lyon, March 2025 , 21^st