Co-Principal Investigator Rebecca Rooney’s latest research explores how sampling biofilms in stormwater ponds may offer a critical and biologically relevant tool for characterizing pesticide contamination and toxicity in urban environments.
Prof. Rooney’s research investigated the occurrence of around 500 current-use and legacy pesticides in stormwater ponds in Brampton, Ontario, one of Canada’s fastest growing municipalities, and quantified their occurrence in biofilm. Overall, 56% of analytes found in biofilms were not found in water samples, suggesting that traditional monitoring practices do not capture all exposure routes.
Read the full journal article in Science of the Total Environment.
Izma, G., Raby, M., Prosser, R., Rooney, R. “Urban-use pesticides in stormwater ponds and their accumulation in biofilms”. Science of the Total Environment, 918 (2024), article 170534, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170534.