I just recently returned from the Aquatic Toxicity Workshop, held this year in Toronto, Ontario. The four day conference is designed to bring industry, private consultants, and academics together to present and discuss new research in aquatic toxicology. Toxicology is the study of poisons (or contaminants) and aquatic toxicologist study the movement of these contaminants through aquatic ecosystems. This year the theme was, "Big cities - Big challenges - Great solutions: urbanization and environmental impacts". The theme was specific, but the talks spanned a much wider range of issues from contaminants leeching out of the Alberta tar sands, to the impacts of pesticides and herbicides on forest-dwelling amphibians, to the impacts of migration on mercury loading in birds.
