Aquatic and Coastal Environmental Sciences Lab, Macquarie University - School of Natural Sciences – A/Prof Katherine Dafforn (katherine.dafforn@mq.edu.au)
We recently welcomed new MRes student Aiden Hose to the lab who is working on a project co-supervised by Dr Anthony Chariton (check out Anthony’s profile as keynote speaker at the SETAC AU 2023 conference ) and Dr Ana Bugnot in collaboration with Sydney Water. Aiden is investigating the biodiversity benefits from Sydney Water’s storm drain channel naturalisation program. This program involves the removal of concrete from the channels and revegetation of banks. Stay tuned for more information when he wraps up at the end of the year.
Stormwater has been a major focus for our lab group for a number of years and Luke Walker continues this research by investigating the end-of-pipe impacts from stormwater discharges on seagrass meadows in Lake Macquarie.
Annemie-Rose Janssen also joined the lab in late 2022 to undertake a Master by Research program and has been investigating phenotypic variation in the golden kelp Eklonia radiata in response to urban stressors.
Giulia Filippini is a PhD student co-supervised by Dr Ana Bugnot who will be handing in her thesis in a few months time. Her work is addressing the impacts that shellfish reefs and surrounding sediments have on biogeochemical cycles, and particularly denitrification. She used a combination of literature review and meta-analysis, field and lab experiments. Her work has been supported by The Nature Conservancy, NSW DPI, NSW DPE and the Sydney Institute of Marine Science will hand in her PhD thesis in just a few months time.
Investigating phenotypic variation in kelp
Measuring biogeochemical cycles on oyser reefs
Naturalised and unnaturalised stormwater channels
ANSTO Environmental Toxicology and Radioecology team – Dr Tom Cresswell (tom.cresswell@ansto.gov.au)
Tom, Francesca and Alexandra have been busy playing with new toys. This month we installed three new instruments the Millennium Merlin, Excalibur and an HPLC for the low-level detection (ppt) and speciation measurements of mercury, arsenic and selenium (see pic below). It is early days, but we are excited to get these instruments up and running in our lab and apply these capabilities to a range of research projects.
Danielle has been conducting dietary and aqueous exposures of mercury and selenium to tadpoles of Striped Marsh Frog using radiotracers to understand mixture effects, bioaccumulation kinetics and biodistribution.
Francesca and Alexandra have developed a method to synthesis radioactive mercuric sulfide (b-HgS). This will be used in upcoming studies comparing the uptake and accumulation of different forms of mercury in marine invertebrates.
Francesca Gissi in the lab radiolabelling sediments with mercuric sulfide.
TEM image confirming synthesis of mercuric sulfide nanoparticles (courtesy of Daniel Oldfield, ANSTO).
Amy has completed a study on assessing the bioavailability of NORMs from marine sediments by invertebrates and has some exciting data and images from the Australian Synchrotron's XFM beamline at the Townsville conference!
Francesca, Alexandra, Danielle and Tom will be presenting at the Mercury Australia symposium in Townsville in Canberra in July. The team will also be attending the SETAC-U conference in Townsville. We can’t wait for a week of great science (and the dance floor, of course).
Opportunities: The group are keen to collaborate with other SETAC-AU members on novel studies assessing the risk of various forms of mercury and naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs) from subsea oil and gas pipelines to marine organisms. The team are having regular discussions with regulators of offshore oil and gas operations in Australia, who urgently need data on the potential effects of chronic exposure to low radiological doses (from NORMs) and mercury to marine organisms, especially benthic organisms. We have a range of projects available for Honours, Masters and PhD projects. Please contact Tom to discuss further.
New publications from the group:
Koppel, D. J., Cresswell, T., MacIntosh, A., von Hellfeld, R., Hastings, A. and Higgins, S. (2023). Threshold values for the protection of marine ecosystems from NORM in subsea oil and gas infrastructure. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity; 258: 107093 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvrad.2022.107093.
Koppel, D. J., Gissi, F., Oluwoye, I. and Cresswell, T. (2023). Do we know enough to make future-proofed decisions about contaminants when decommissioning offshore oil and gas infrastructure? The APPEA Journal; 63: S309-S314 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ22173.
Watson, S. M., McLean, D. L., Balcom, B. J., Birchenough, S. N. R., Brand, A. M., Camprasse, E. C. M., Claisse, J. T., Coolen, J. W. P., Cresswell, T., Fokkema, B., Gourvenec, S., Henry, L.-A., Hewitt, C. L., Love, M. S., MacIntosh, A. E., Marnane, M., McKinley, E., Micallef, S., Morgan, D., Nicolette, J., Ounanian, K., Patterson, J., Seath, K., Selman, A. G. L., Suthers, I. M., Todd, V. L. G., Tung, A. and Macreadie, P. I. (2023). Offshore decommissioning horizon scan: Research priorities to support decision-making activities for oil and gas infrastructure. Science of The Total Environment; 878: 163015 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163015.
CSIRO Environment, Lucas Heights, Contaminant Effects and Risk Assessment Team - Lisa Golding (lisa.golding@csiro.au)
Lisa Golding, has been deriving default marine water guidelines for arsenic and manganese and continuing to work on deriving site-specific guidelines for Norfolk Island and New Caledonia for nutrients and metals, respectively.
Jenny Stauber, together with Adam Ryan (International Zinc Association), organised a workshop on the derivation and implementation of freshwater bioavailability-based guidelines for metals at Rydges Cronulla, in Sydney on April 28. Thirty invited scientists and regulators from New Zealand and Australia enthusiastically participated after a welcome dinner the night before. The workshop was preceded by a gathering the day before for the toxicants working group to help reach consensus on the best approach for guideline implementation.
The objectives of the workshop were to:
A series of presentations focused on why and how bioavailability-based guidelines are needed, followed by discussion of several options for implementation. A tiered approach was recommended, with adjustment of sample dissolved metals for water chemistry parameters or adjustment of the guideline value to match the water chemistry. A proposal for funding the development and implementation of the tiered framework was presented to the Metals Environment Research Associations (MERA) at the SETAC Europe meeting in Dublin. While there was strong support, it is likely that additional funding will be needed to fully implement the approach.
A report with more details of the workshop is available from Jenny on request (jenny.stauber@csiro.au). We thank IZA for the generous sponsorship of this workshop and all the participants who made our first face-to-face event so enjoyable.
Some of the late night workshop participants
Monique Binet has published research done in collaboration with Mandy Reichelt-Brushett (Southern Cross University) and AIMS at the Seasim facility back in 2018. They generated high quality acute toxicity data, from flow-through experiments to provide the first definitive published data to support the hypothesis put forward by two earlier studies that adult scleractinian corals are particularly sensitive to manganese. Acute toxicity of manganese to Acropora muricata was observed at dissolved concentrations well below those reported to cause acute and chronic toxicity to other marine species and to other coral life stages. To enable assessment for degrees of tissue loss, they developed a health index chart for Acropora muricata.
Team members Monique Binet, Kitty McKnight and Mandy Reichelt-Brushett working with coral at AIMS’ Seasim facility in 2018.
Binet MT, Reichelt-Brushett A, McKnight K, Golding LA, Humphrey C, Stauber JL. Adult Corals Are Uniquely More Sensitive to Manganese Than Coral Early-Life Stages. Environ Toxicol Chem. 2023 Jun;42(6):1359-1370. https://setac.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.5618
School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England - Susan Wilson (swilson24@une.edu.au) and Matt Tighe (mtighe2@une.edu.au)
Recent Highlights:
We’ve welcomed new honours student Caitlyn George working on transfer of antibiotic resistance from compost to soil, and new PhD student Nivetha Sivarajah who will be investigating microplastics in agrosystems. Working with Ed Burton and Steven Doherty of Southern Cross University we’ve some Synchrotron beamtime coming up to elucidate antimony and arsenic sequestration in iron minerals. In February we finally (no fires or floods this time) were able to host PhD student Ursina Morganthaler from Professor Adrien Mestrot’s group at University of Bern to sample the Macleay River floodplain soils for investigation of volatile and methylated antimony species.
PhD student Carolyn Sonter, studying PFOS effects on honey bees, has been successful with abstracts to 48th Apimondia Congress so she’s off to Chile in September whilst PhD student Nicola Forster, studying microplastics in wilderness areas, is just about to submit her thesis – she’s had 3 publications out since last issue of Endpoint - well done Nicola!
Check out our webpage at www.une.edu.au/pollutionscienc and follow us on Twitter at @UNEPollutionSci. We have PhD opportunities, including scholarships. Contact Susan Wilson (swilso24@une.edu.au) or Matt Tighe (mtighe2@une.edu.au)
mikaela.nordborg@my.jcu.edu.au
CSIRO Environment postdoc Dr Damien Lettoof and research scientist Dr David Beale have been performing field collections of cane toads from six sites around Brisbane with different levels of PFAS contamination. They are now quantifying the PFAS and metal levels in the livers from the collected toads, and using systems biology tools (including transcriptomics, proteomics, lipidomics and metabolomics) to assess the impacts of PFAS and legacy urban metal contamination on the health of amphibians around Brisbane in Queensland and Perth in Western Australia. Toads were collected through active night-time searches, and Damian Lettoof is looking to do collections of common frog species found around Perth and Brisbane later this year to repeat the study in additional species.
Night-time cane toad searches at PFAS contaminated sites around Brisbane
Dr Damian Lettoof holding a captured cane toad
Cane toad (Rhinella marina) captured for use in studies of PFAS contaminated sites
AIMS Tropical Ecotoxicology & Risk Assessment (TERA) Team, Dr Andrew Negri (a.negri@aims.gov.au) and Dr Ross Jones (r.jones@aims.gov.au)
The AIMS TERA team has seen some changes over the past year and were joined by Dr Darren Koppell, as a Research Scientist working on decommissioning of oil and gas infrastructure, in the second half of 2022. Additionally, Tess Jenkins (BSc) has joined the team as a Marine Science Graduate, through a new AIMS initiative to employ additional graduate level technicians and staff. In March 2023, over a year after submitting her PhD thesis, Mikaela Nordborg finally got to wear her floppy hat and colourful JCU PhD regalia! During the graduation ceremony she also received the Dean of Graduate Research School’s Award for Excellence for her thesis. While Dr Nordborg has now moved into a postdoctoral role in a different team at AIMS, she is continuing to work on the last of her PhD publications with her co-authors in the TERA team.
The Team is continuing lab and field-based studies to define guideline or threshold values for dredging projects around reefs, based on turbidity and minimum light requirements for corals. Work over the last 5 years has also been on the effects of hydrocarbons on tropical species and the opportunities associated with toxicity modelling for defining the size of the environment that may be affected (the EMBA) by an uncontrolled hydrocarbon release, which is a requirement of the National Regulator (NOPSEMA) and relevant to all Australian Oil and Gas Companies operating offshore. Most recently the Team has been partnering with Shell Australia Ltd concerning the effects of produced water discharges from their Prelude Floating Liquified Natural Gas (FLNG) facility on the North West shelf.
In the first six months of 2023 the team has published two new papers, including a paper in ET&C by Dr Rebecca Fisher and Dr David Fox on novel statistical methods for concentration-response analysis (https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.5610) and work led by Dr Diane Brinkman and Florita Flores on the effects of aromatic hydrocarbons on adult Acropora millepora corals and derivation of sensitivity constants for use in toxicity modelling for this common Indo-Pacific species was recently published in EnvPol (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2023.121963).
Several of the TERA team members, including Heidi Luter, Mikaela Nordborg and Florita Flores are also preparing to run the post-conference tour at the AIMS Townsville site on Friday the 11th August. If you are curious about the experimental and laboratory facilities we have developed or the work AIMS does in the environmental monitoring, ecotoxicology and risk assessment space then make sure you book in when registering for the conference!
Additionally, Rebecca Fisher and Darren Koppell will be running a full day workshop on the use of the software R for concentration-response analysis, and demonstrating the use of both Frequentists and Bayesian R packages. Further details about this training opportunity can be found here on the conference website. Places will be limited so make sure you register as soon as possible!
Dr Mikaela Nordborg at the James Cook University College of Science & Engineering 2023 Graduation Ceremony
Winter sunsets in Townsville, FNQ
Sensitivity of the Indo-Pacific coral Acropora millepora to aromatic hydrocarbons (Brinkman & Flores et al. 2023; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2023.121963)
It’s been all hands on deck the past six months for the TropWATER ecotox team. Work has been largely directed at report writing following a very wet and hectic FNQ wet season. The team was able to provide a lot of support and on-call response work throughout the wet season, especially over the Christmas and New Year period when some of our field sites were receiving 24-hour rainfall totals over 150 mm!
Shelley Templeman and Sarah McDonald were lucky enough to attend Science meets Parliament (SmP) in early March. The professional development event was a great success and was attended by over 500 delegates from across Australia. Both Shelley and Sarah met with parliamentarians to discuss how their own research, and that of the wider SETAC-AU community, benefits the national interest. Shelley met Hon Michael McCormack MP and Sarah met Senator Larissa Waters. Sarah also attended the National Press Club address from Hon Ed Husic MP.
In other news, the team is busy getting ready to host the upcoming SETAC-AU conference – we can’t wait to welcome you all to our stunning city this August!
Our PhD student, Maddi McKenzie is continuing her research into the response of the Upside-down jellyfish (Cassiopea sp.) to emerging contaminants. Maddi is excited to present some of her research at the conference, keep an eye out on the program!
We would also like to welcome a new member to our team, Julie Hanley who many of you know from her work with macroinvertebrates with the Supervising Scientist in the NT. Her freshwater ecological expertise is next to none, and we are very lucky to have her working with us!
Queensland outback post-wet season, rivers and swamp mahogany
Tree frog in the middle of the outback!
Stuart Ballantyne and Sarah McDonald in the field
AQUEST Research Group, School of Science, RMIT University – Monica Tewman (monica.tewman@rmit.edu.au)
It’s been a busy first half of 2023, with a wrapping up on projects for the first round of the Aquatic Pollution Prevention Partnership (A3P) with Melbourne Water and planning for the next round underway. Kathryn Hassell and I spent a day out with the community of Stony Creek sharing results of research on litter and toxicants that our group has undertaken across the Stony Creek catchment over the last few years. The day was led by Melbourne Water and involved various stakeholders including the EPA and local councils. We were also successful in receiving funding from Water RA for a project looking at Augmenting water bodies with Highly Treated Recycled Water (HTRW). The project focuses on research beyond environmental impact assessment and will enhance knowledge around the long-term ecosystem changes that may occur beyond the current state of knowledge around augmentation with highly treated water and will be run over the next few years.
On the conference circuit, Vincent Pettigrove attended SETAC Europe in Dublin on the way to Dublin he also visited the European Commission in Ispra, Italy to catch up with Caterina Cacciatori, a current PhD in our group. Claudette Kellar and Vin led a workshop at the Symposium on Urbanization and Stream Ecology (SUSE) conference in Brisbane around whether current urban stormwater management guidelines are suitable for managing micropolluants. They will be working on a paper around this issue with attendees so keep a look out for this. Jackie Myers and Claudette also attended the Freshwater Sciences Society Conference in Brisbane presenting research on pollutants in new housing estates and the benfits of stream frontage management works for river health in the Campaspe. The conference included the Australian and New Zealand Freshwater Science Societies and the Society for Freshwater Science, ending up with over 650 attendees and 10 concurrent sessions!
PhD Project Updates
We have had two new PhD students start in 2023, Anuradha Athawuda who will be looking into microplastic sources and fate in the Westernport environment and Adele Romagnano who will be investigating the effect of emerging contaminants on the platypus. Madara Ranatunga, a 3rd Year PhD, has just had her first paper published reviewing Bifenthrin impacts to non-target organisms. Hannah Ferone completed her honours with AQUEST in 2022 was recently awarded the SETAC thesis prize for her thesis “The impact of pollution on biofilms, zooplankton, and macroinvertebrate communities in constructed stormwater wetlands (CSW)” which addressed the gap in available information on impacts of pollution to macroinvertebrates, zooplankton and biofilms, in constructed stormwater wetlands. You will be able to learn more about Hannahs’ research at the upcoming SETAC AU conference in Townsville in August.
Recent publications from the group include: (lab affiliated members in bold)
See our website for more publications, technical reports and project information: http:rmit.edu.au/aquest
School of Biological Sciences, Monash University – Professor Bob Wong (bob.wong@monash.edu, bobwonglab.org, @BBM_Wong)
The Behavioural Ecology Research Group hosted several international research visitors in the first half of 2023. Prof Janette Boughman (University of Michigan) spent several months as a Fulbright Fellow in the Group collaborating on a review paper examining the impacts of anthropogenic change, including chemical pollution, on sexual selection and the speciation process. Dr Morelia Camacho (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) has been working with members of the Lab, together with colleagues from RMIT, to investigate the impacts of various pharmaceutical pollutants on the behaviour of invasive fish and freshwater snails as part of her APEC-Australia Women in Research Fellowship. Lastly, we hosted an international student intern, Marie Gelle (Université Jean Monnet, Saint-Etienne), who carried out a Masters research project studying the impacts of the psychoactive pollutant, clobazam, on reproductive behaviour in guppies as part of an international collaboration with researchers from Stockholm University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
In other news, our Group welcomed the arrival of a new PhD student, Eleanor Moore, who will be studying the effects of pharmaceutical pollutants on animal cognition. PhD student Jack Orford, who studied the impacts of agricultural contaminants on tadpoles and frogs, recently submitted his thesis. On the conference circuit, several students from the Group attended the Australian Evolution Conference in Canberra late last year, where a number of students picked up awards for their presentations. More recently, Hung Tan presented some of his PhD work at the SETAC Europe conference in Dublin.
Recent relevant publications (lab affiliated members in bold; * denotes joint senior authors)
Bertram, M.G., Brodin, T., Ågerstrand, M., Wong, B.B.M. In press. Chemical pollution. In B.B.M. Wong & U. Candolin (Eds.). Behavioral Responses to a Changing World: Challenges and Applications. Oxford University Press: United Kingdom.
Orford, J.T., Tan, H., Tingley, R., Alton, L.A.*, Wong, B.B.M.,* Martin, J.M.* In press. Bigger and bolder: Widespread agricultural pollutant 17β-trenbolone increases growth and alters behaviour in tadpoles (Litoria ewingii). Aquatic Toxicology.
Polverino, G., Aich, U., Brand, J.A., Bertram, M.G., Martin, J.M., Tan, H., Soman, V., Mason, R., Wong, B.B.M. In press. Sex-specific effects of psychoactive pollution on behavioural individuality and plasticity of fish. Behavioral Ecology.
Tan, H., Martin, J.M., Alton, L.A., Lesku, J.A.*, Wong, B.B.M.* 2023. Widespread psychoactive pollutant augments daytime restfulness and disrupts diurnal activity rhythms in fish. Chemosphere. 326: 138446.
van Dooren, T., Price, C.J., Banks, P.B., Berger-Tal, O., Chrulew, M., Johnson, J., Lajeunesse, G., Lynch, K.E., McArthur, C., Parker, F.C.G., Oakey, M., Pitcher, B.J., St. Clair, C.C., Ward-Fear, G., Widin, S., Wong, B.B.M., Blumstein, D.T. In press. The ethics of intervening in animal behaviour for conservation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
Victorian Environmental Protection Authority – Dr Minna Saaristo (Minna.Saaristo@epa.vic.gov.au)
The Victorian EPA have just released a new report on Emerging contaminants in recycled water on Monday 5th June! The report can be found at: https://www.epa.vic.gov.au/about-epa/publications/2054-emerging-contaminants-in-recycled-water#:~:text=Recycled%20water%20has%20become%20a,chemicals%2C%20and%20personal%20care%20products
A summary of the paper is provided below.
Our research
What we found
What this means
Next steps
The first half of 2023 has flown by, and this week we celebrate the spirit of Midwinter and Winter Solstice! Midwinter is a special time for Antarctic programs across all nations. It is traditionally celebrated as the most important day of an expeditioner’s time down south in isolation and having made it through the darkest time and marks the return of sun & light. Here at Head Office in Kingston, we also part take in the Midwinter celebrations as a sign of solidarity and support for our friends and colleagues over wintering on station in Antarctica. Celebrations include a Memorial Ceremony with a roll call and moment of silence for our friends who have lost their lives in service to Australia Antarctic Program.
With the end of the 22/23 summer field season, we are now preparing and planning for the upcoming 23/24 field season both in our ongoing fuel spill remediation work at Casey Station and the first of our contaminated site assessments under our “A Cleaner Antarctica” Project at Mawson Station. This project will inform Australia’s assessment and monitoring of contaminants, legacy waste and human impacts in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic, and in future years, will direct remediation activities across the Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT).
On the research front, our environmental toxicology team have been as busy as ever, with most of our research directed towards the improvement of techniques and building up cultures, and to the development and application of toxicity tests with terrestrial micro-invertebrates. With a range of species now available in culture, Kathryn Brown and I are also now looking to develop rapid toxicity test methods, particularly with some of our rotifer species that we have good knowledge of life history characteristics through the work of our PhD student Melanie Borup. The method will use aliquots of bulk rotifer culture that are dried onto filter papers and stored ready for rapid testing. This approach will allow us to have test biota in stock without the timing restrictions posed by live cultures. It will be a game changer for us if it works! Melanie has also started more intensive toxicity testing with some of her species to investigate sensitivity to copper, utilising reproductive output as a chronic endpoint - No small feat in Antarctic species which are slow to respond and have extended life histories.
Bianca Sfiligoj and Kathryn are continuing their research with the nematode Plectus murrayi to investigate sensitivity to ammonia. Ammonia is one of the main nutrients that has been used in biopiles as part of our in-situ bioremediation treatment of fuel contaminated soils at Casey Station, and the results of toxicity studies will help inform soil reuse risk assessments. Recently back from Casey Station himself, Gwilym Price will soon be recommencing work on isolating microalgae and developing cultures as potential species for toxicity testing.
Jordan Price, a PhD student from Belinda Ferrari’s lab (UNSW) has also been working with us here in Kingston over the last few weeks, learning various chemical analysis and test media preparation techniques, as well as getting to know the team. Jordan’s PhD aims to develop growth inhibition and fluorescence assays with several species of Antarctic fungi, which will be a much-needed addition to our suite of toxicity tests available for use in risk assessments.
Jane Wasley and I continue to work through several important data sets for publication, and to compile and consolidate all our toxicity data accumulated with collaborators over the past 15 years or so. We are also working with statistical modelling guru Rebecca Fisher (AIMS) to develop some time integrated modelling methods that will allow a much more comprehensive and integrated analysis of some of our extended duration toxicity data sets.
Looking forward to seeing many of you in Townsville!
julia.jasonsmith@murrang.com.au
SETAC ACT’s members have continued to be very busy in recent months, with our last meeting held in March 2023. Many of our members work in the Australian federal government to improve Australia’s response to chemicals in the environment, with SETAC ACT’s particular strength being in understanding the regulatory environment for chemicals in Australia. Some ACT SETAC members interact with the European Government (the EU) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to ensure that Australia’s management of chemicals considers the efforts to protect human health and the environment undertaken internationally. This work has seen other Australian SETAC members drawn upon for contributions where appropriate. Other work is occurring in relation to the important changes to the way chemicals may be managed at the Federal government level in Australia. The mechanics of the new Commonwealth Environment Protection Agency are being threshed out and a new Australian Centre for Disease Control is on the way.
All attendees of ACT SETAC meetings continue to be concerned with the regulation of agricultural and veterinary pesticides in Australia, with members Gary Fan and Chris Lee-Steere providing expert advice regarding how these concerns might be best addressed by SETAC and its members. The work of Chris Lee-Steere has been referenced in a number of articles by The Guardian newspaper. Our members are keen to see SETAC Australia grow further into its role as a leading advocate for the environment in the pollution space and SETAC’s continuing engagement and advocacy to government in this space. Finally, congratulations go to Dr Larissa Schneider, who was recently promoted to the level of Associate Professor at the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University for her ongoing work relating to mercury in Australia and abroad.
A number of job opportunities are available in the pollution and contamination space within the ACT at the moment. Please contact Julia Jasonsmith as the ACT rep. for more information.