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Natural Toxins - Environmental Fate and Safe Water Supply

Natural toxins

This is an article collection in Environmental Sciences Europe.

Plants, bacteria, cyanobacteria, algae and other organisms produce a vast diversity of bioactive and toxic natural compounds. We know that many of these toxins are mobile and can be produced in high amounts close to or within drinking water reservoirs. Natural toxins represent emerging classes of environmental contaminants for which we have very limited insight on occurrence, fate and effects. This article collection addresses knowledge gaps within the field of natural toxins, target, non-target, suspect and effect-directed analysis, distribution, fate, toxicity and management of natural toxins in aquatic environments and drinking water reservoirs.

Accepted topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Classification of natural compounds, new compounds and sources
  • Analytical methods for natural toxins (target and non-target)
  • Sampling and monitoring
  • Environmental modelling
  • Physicochemical properties, environmental distribution and fate
  • Environmental and human exposure
  • Toxicity to aquatic/terrestrial organisms and humans
  • Risk assessment and regulation
  • Removal/management of natural toxins
  • Future challenges: climate change effects, biopesticides, invasive species etc.

Submission Instructions

Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have carefully read the submission guidelines for Environmental Sciences Europe. The complete manuscript should be submitted through the Environmental Sciences Europe submission system. To ensure that you submit to the correct article collection please select the appropriate article collection in the drop-down menu upon submission. In addition, indicate within your cover letter that you wish your manuscript to be considered as part of the article collection 'Natural Toxins - Environmental Fate and Safe Water Supply'. All submissions will undergo rigorous peer review and accepted articles will be published within the journal as a collection.

Deadline for submissions: 31 December 2020

Edited by:
Hans Christian Bruun Hansen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Klára Hilscherová, RECETOX, Masaryk University, Czechia
Thomas Bucheli, Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research, Switzerland

Published articles in this collection:
 

  1. Biosynthetic toxic compounds from plants and cyanobacteria constitute a chemically diverse family of at least 20,000 compounds. Recent work with natural toxin databases and toxin characterization shows that th...

    Authors: Hans Christian Bruun Hansen, Klara Hilscherova and Thomas D. Bucheli
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:112
    Content type: Editorial Published on:

  2. Myocardial fibrosis is a critical pathological basis for the poor prognosis of cardiovascular diseases. Studies have found that myocardial fibrosis is closely associated with exposure to environmental estrogen...

    Authors: Chao Liu, Chengyu Ni, Weichu Liu, Xiaolian Yang, Renyi Zhang, Jianling Zhang, Man Luo, Jie Xu and Jie Yu
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:96
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. Cyanobacterial blooms are of increasing concern for drinking water supply. In Sweden, a survey among drinking water producers showed that the sense of urgency was little. At 60% of the Swedish drinking water t...

    Authors: J. Li, K. M. Persson, H. Pekar and D. Jansson
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:54
    Content type: Research Published on:

  4. Bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum) produces several toxic glycosides, of which ptaquiloside (PTA) is the most well documented. PTA is released from bracken to soil and leaches to surface water and to groundwater....

    Authors: Daniel B. García-Jorgensen, Efstathios Diamantopoulos, Vaidotas Kisielius, Mette Rosenfjeld, Lars H. Rasmussen, Bjarne W. Strobel and Hans Chr. B. Hansen
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:45
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. Ptaquiloside (PTA), caudatoside (CAU) and ptesculentoside (PTE) are carcinogenic illudane glycosides found in bracken ferns (Pteridium spp.) world-wide. The environmentally mobile PTA entails both acute and chron...

    Authors: Natasa Skrbic, Vaidotas Kisielius, Ann-Katrin Pedersen, Sarah C. B. Christensen, Mathilde J. Hedegaard, Hans Christian Bruun Hansen and Lars Holm Rasmussen
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:44
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. Though anatoxin-a (antx-a) is a globally important cyanobacterial neurotoxin in inland waters, information on sublethal toxicological responses of aquatic organisms is limited. We examined influences of (±) an...

    Authors: Lea M. Lovin, Sujin Kim, Raegyn B. Taylor, Kendall R. Scarlett, Laura M. Langan, C. Kevin Chambliss, Saurabh Chatterjee, J. Thad Scott and Bryan W. Brooks
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:40
    Content type: Research Published on:

  7. Phytotoxins of various classes and origin are often found in their cationic form in the soil environment and thus, their overall soil behavior may be strongly affected by all geosorbents presenting cation exch...

    Authors: Carina D. Schönsee, Felix E. Wettstein and Thomas D. Bucheli
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:36
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:55

  8. Excess loads of nutrients finding their way into waterbodies can cause rapid and excessive growth of phytoplankton species and lead to the formation of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyano-HABs). Toxic c...

    Authors: Eleni Keliri, Christia Paraskeva, Angelos Sofokleous, Assaf Sukenik, Dariusz Dziga, Ekaterina Chernova, Luc Brient and Maria G. Antoniou
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:31
    Content type: Research Published on:

  9. Bloom-forming cyanobacteria occur globally in aquatic environments. They produce diverse bioactive metabolites, some of which are known to be toxic. The most studied cyanobacterial toxins are microcystins, ana...

    Authors: Daria Filatova, Martin R. Jones, John A. Haley, Oscar Núñez, Marinella Farré and Elisabeth M.-L. Janssen
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:29
    Content type: Research Published on:

  10. Cyanobacteria and their toxins occur in high concentrations during the so-called bloom events in surface waters. To be able to assess the risks associated with cyanobacterial blooms, we need to understand the ...

    Authors: Regiane Natumi, Sandro Marcotullio and Elisabeth M.-L. Janssen
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:26
    Content type: Research Published on:

  11. A large number of chemicals are constantly introduced to surface water from anthropogenic and natural sources. So far, unlike anthropogenic pollutants, naturally occurring compounds are not included in environ...

    Authors: Mulatu Yohannes Nanusha, Martin Krauss, Bettina Gro Sørensen, Tobias Schulze, Bjarne W. Strobel and Werner Brack
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:25
    Content type: Research Published on:

  12. Ptaquiloside (PTA) is a natural carcinogen found in bracken ferns. PTA is released from the plants via soil to surface and groundwaters from where humans can be exposed via drinking water. Primary degradation ...

    Authors: Jane S. Wu, Frederik Clauson-Kaas, Dan Nybro Lindqvist, Lars Holm Rasmussen, Bjarne W. Strobel and Hans Christian Bruun Hansen
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:24
    Content type: Research Published on:

  13. Regulatory hazard and risk assessment of endocrine-active substances currently specifies four modes of action: interference with sex hormone (oestrogen, androgen) pathways, steroidogenesis, and thyroid hormone...

    Authors: Barbara Kubickova, Carmel Ramwell, Klara Hilscherova and Miriam Naomi Jacobs
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:20
    Content type: Review Published on:

  14. Many plants contain phytotoxic alkaloids to deter herbivorous pests and grazing animals. Alkaloids include quinolizidine and indole alkaloids found in the lupin (Lupinus spp.), an ornamental flower and emerging p...

    Authors: Megan R. Griffiths, Bjarne W. Strobel, Jawameer R. Hama and Nina Cedergreen
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2021 33:10
    Content type: Research Published on:

  15. Substantial efforts have been made to monitor potentially hazardous anthropogenic contaminants in surface waters while for plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) almost no data on occurrence in the water cycle are...

    Authors: Mulatu Yohannes Nanusha, Martin Krauss, Carina D. Schönsee, Barbara F. Günthardt, Thomas D. Bucheli and Werner Brack
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2020 32:142
    Content type: Research Published on:

  17. Lupin is a promising legume crop, belongs to the Fabaceae (or Leguminosae) family. Lupin production for traditional and functional foods or animal feed is limited, due to the content of toxic quinolizidine (QA)s ...

    Authors: Jawameer R. Hama and Bjarne W. Strobel
    Citation: Environmental Sciences Europe 2020 32:126
    Content type: Research Published on: