Ecotoxicology: Perspectives on Key Issues

This book presents an integrated discussion on ecotoxicology, containing both general concepts and specific ecotoxicological issues of major biological groups, extending beyond conventional systems. It explores worldwide, regional, and biocompartmentalized topics, bringing forth new points of view on global issues and addressing the increasing diversity and complexity of the ecotoxicological field. It also contains novel information on emerging contaminants, presents bioaccumulation effects on different levels of ecological organization and risk analyses, and discusses novel fields of methodological applications, including key aspects in ecotoxicological and environmental monitoring studies.

Rachel Ann Hauser-Davis has both a bachelor’s and licentiate’s degree in Biological Sciences from the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). She has a Master’s degree in Analytical Chemistry, majoring in Environmental Chemistry and a Doctorate degree in Sciences – Analytical Chemistry, majoring in Environmental Proteomics and Metallomics, both from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). She has held some major research fellowships, including a post-doctoral fellowship at the State University of Campinas (São Paulo, Brazil) and at the Biosciences Institute of the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), where she is currently a guest investigator and scientific advisor.

Prizes won include the Taylor & Francis book award in conjunction with Journals of Toxicology and Environmental Health for best poster presentation at the 1stIbero-American Meeting on Toxicology and Environmental Health (2009) on the influence of metal contamination of piscine morphometric indices, an award by the Brazilian Computational Society for best poster presentation at the XII Regional School of North Informatics concerning the determination of hydrological regimes in the Brazilian Amazon (2013), the CSI Poster Award for best poster presentation at the XXXVIII Colloquium Spectroscopicum Internationale (2013) on data novel regarding oxidative stress biomarkers and metal bioaccumulation in blue crab eggs in 2013 and a notable mention in the RSC Journal Metallomics for being an author of the second most downloaded article from the journal (2015). She is Associate Editor for the scientific journal Marine Pollution Bulletin (Elsevier) and a member of the Editorial Board for the scientific journal Chemosphere (Elsevier).

She is also a journal reviewer for over 20 reputed peer-reviewed international journals and has published 38 scientific papers and one book chapter to date, mostly in her line of research of environmental contamination in aquatic ecosystems and the investigation of novel and known biomarkers of exposure to contaminants of worldwide concern, as well as on the applications of different analytical techniques to environmental contamination studies.

Thiago Estevam Parente has a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences, majoring in Genetics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), a Master’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), and a Doctorate degree in Biophysics by the UFRJ. He was affiliated to the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette, France), at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI, Woods Hole, MA, USA), and at the UFRJ. Currently, he has a Guest Investigator appointment at the WHOI and at FIOCRUZ, where he also acts as a scientific advisor for the Master’s and Doctorate degree program of Systems and Computational Biology.

Thiago has published 15 papers as first and as senior author, as well as collaborator on peer-reviewed international journals. Most of his work is devoted to the characterization of biochemical and molecular adaptations of Cytochromes P450 genes in neotropical fish species. More recently, he has applied next-generation sequencing technologies to investigate broader patterns governing gene evolution, diversification and ecological adaptations in neotropical fish. His work has been supported by grants from Brazilian Agencies (CNPq, CAPES and FAPERJ) and from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Partnership for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) initiative.