Cecília obtains her PhD in Applied Biological Sciences

We are happy to announce that our colleague, Cecília Silva Pereira, on October 30, 2018, defended her dissertation to earn her doctoral degree! During her PhD, her research focused on assessing the effect of temperature on metal toxicity to Daphnia magna.

Congratulations, Cecília! We wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors, wherever these may take you!

 

Title of the doctoral dissertation: 

The effect of temperature on metal toxicity and toxicokinetics in the aquatic model organism Daphnia magna

Abstract of the doctoral research:

Aquatic ecosystems provide crucial resources as drinking water and water for agriculture uses. However, they are suffering constant threats from human activities such as the introduction of metals in the ecosystems. Environmental risk assessment (ERA) establishes policies to protect the ecosystems. It establishes environmental quality standards (concentrations) that should not be exceeded; otherwise ecosystems can be damaged. More than 95 % of the species in aquatic ecosystems are ectothermic (the regulation of their body temperature depends on the environmental temperature). However, the potential effect of temperature on chemical toxicity is still disregarded in ERA. Therefore, the focus of this thesis was to explore the effect of temperature on metal toxicity to Daphnia magna. Several approaches were followed from single generational and multigenerational tests assessing apical (individual) endpoints to a population experiment.

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