This webinar titled “Microbial Ecotoxicology: Recent Investigations in Microbial Ecology Research” was originally broadcasted on March 4, 2021. The term “microbial ecotoxicology” was coined to describe interdisciplinary studies that focus on understanding the response of the microbial component in ecosystems when subjected to environmental contamination. In this webinar, several key recent investigations in this emerging field were presented by distinguished speakers.

The chair of the webinar was Max Häggblom, who serves as the Editor-in-Chief of FEMS Microbiology Ecology, a renowned scientific journal in the field. The speakers included experts from different universities and research institutions:

1. Speaker 1: Stéphane Vuilleumier from the University of Strasbourg, France. He provided an introduction to the key questions in microbial ecotoxicology, setting the stage for the subsequent presentations.
2. Speaker 2: Dimitrios G Karpouzas from the University of Thessaly, Greece. He discussed his research work, which was published in FEMS Microbiology Ecology in 2020. The article, authored by A. Katsoula et al., explores microbial adaptation in antimony-contaminated soils. The link to the article can be found at https://academic.oup.com/femsec/article/96/6/fiaa056/5833347.
3. Speaker 3: Karen Wuyts from the University of Antwerp, Belgium. She presented her research, which was published in FEMS Microbiology Ecology in 2020. The article, authored by K. Wuyts et al., investigates the response of soil and phyllosphere microbial communities to repeated fungicide application. The article can be accessed at https://academic.oup.com/femsec/article/96/6/fiz173/5924769.
4. Speaker 4: Weimin Sun from the Guangdong Institute of Eco-environmental Science & Technology in Guangzhou, China. He discussed his research work, published in FEMS Microbiology Ecology in 2020. The article, authored by R. Xu et al., focuses on the shaping of urban bacterial communities by green infrastructure and atmospheric pollution. The article is available at https://academic.oup.com/femsec/article/96/7/fiaa188/5946147.

This webinar was part of a series organized by FEMS in collaboration with Oxford University Press, aiming to disseminate valuable scientific research in the field of microbial ecology.