Doxycycline adsorption and toxicity in earthworms after manure application to soil

Summary

Chemical contaminants can end up in agricultural soils after manure
application. The use of persistent chemicals is unwanted as they can
accumulate and impact soil health, biodiversity and food and feed
safety (figure 1). For many chemicals, the ecotoxicological effects and
food and feed safety hazards are largely unknown.
To understand the ecotoxicological and food safety hazards of
chemical residues, we aim to develop an in-silico tool to assess the
potential accumulation and effects of chemicals for the bioindicator
species earthworm. This will consist of (1) the development of a
conceptual dynamic energy budget toxicology earthworm model and
(2) the completion of experimental studies for model training and
verification. We present a first pilot experiment using one of the most
frequently applied antibiotics in animal husbandry: doxycycline (DOX).