Guest Editors
Inês Domingues
University of Aveiro, Department of Biology & CESAM
Inês Domingues is an assistant researcher at CESAM & Department of Biology at University of Aveiro. She has a first degree in Biology (University of Porto, 2000) and a PhD in Ecology (University of Aveiro, 2007). She has been working in aquatic ecotoxicology for the last 15 years in the assessment of effects and modes of action of several types of contaminants (e.g. pharmaceuticals and pesticides) to several aquatic model species including zebrafish. She is also especially interested in the measurement of behavioral parameters as sensitive and relevant endpoints to assess effects of neurotoxic compounds. She is responsible for the management of the zebrafish facilities at the department of Biology.
Isabel Lopes
University of Aveiro, Department of Biology & CESAM
Isabel Lopes obtained her PhD degree in Biology (with specialization in Ecology) in 2003 at the University of Coimbra. At present, she is a Principal Researcher at CESAM and Department of Biology of the University of Aveiro, where she develops independent research on ecological risk assessment, namely in the fields of aquatic and evolutionary ecotoxicology. Within these research fields, she has been o focused on the characterization of environmental effects of natural and anthropogenic stressors across different taxonomic groups and levels of biological organization. Recently, and given the ethical issues related with animal experimentation within risk assessment frameworks, she started to be interested in developing non-animal alternatives to be used in first tiers of risk assessment of chemicals to the Class of vertebrates Amphibia.
Collection Overview
Global changes are exposing the biota to new environmental stressors that may cause several adverse effects and influence their fitness. To accurately identify the impacts of such perturbations under realistic ecological scenarios, different disciplines of environmental sciences, have evolved searching for sensitive and ecologically relevant endpoints. Several behavior endpoints, mostly based on the locomotory activity of organisms, have emerged as sensitive parameters, easily connected to important ecological processes (such as food seeking, sensing predators or nonspecific interactions) on which the species fitness depends. The availability of good quality recording devices including video-tracking systems associated with software for movement analysis allowed the development of assays in a wide range of organisms such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and invertebrates. These assays evaluate the organism's response to a stressor by exploring behavioral components based on locomotion such as hyper-, hypoactivity, freezing, erratic swimming, thigmotaxis, avoidance, exploratory, social, and mating behaviors. However, the lack of standardization of methodologies prevents the generalized use of these techniques and the comparison of results amongst research groups. The goal of this collection is to compile methods for measuring behavior of organisms subjected to environmental or/and chemical stress to promote the use of behavioral tools for effective risk assessment and biomonitoring frameworks, improving the knowledge of global changes-induced behavioral responses aiming at more accurate protection and conservation of biodiversity.
Articles
Integration of Animal Behavioral Assessment and Convolutional Neural Network to Study Wasabi-Alcohol Taste-Smell Interaction
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Cited by 1
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2024
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1State Key Laboratory of Environmental and Biological Analysis, Department of Chemistry, Hong Kong Baptist University, 2Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Contaminants Exposure and Health, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Institute of Environmental Health and Pollution Control, Guangdong University of Technology, 3Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Research and Development of Natural Drugs, and School of Pharmacy, Guangdong Medical University