Welcome to the DEBtox information site
Welcome to the DEBtox information page, the
site for people that want to make sense of ecotoxicity data.
This site contains information on mechanistic models for the
analysis of stressor effects on the life-history traits of
individual organisms (and from there to higher and lower
levels of biological organisation). Specifically, this site
is about models based on animal energy budgets (DEBtox and DEBkiss) and survival models
from the GUTS framework.
This website constitues a node in the international DEBnet
network, together with the associated site of DEBtox Research.
The mission of DEBtox.info is to simplify biology to
get to the essence of what toxicants (and other stresses)
are actually doing to organisms. Simplification is necessary
if we need to gain understanding. Furthermore, we cannot
expect to test even a small fraction of all possible
(combinations of) toxicants, species and environmental
conditions. Once we get to the essence, it is possible to
make educated predictions of toxicant effects for untested
chemicals, untested species, and under untested conditions.
Here, you can find information, lists of relevant
publications, (links to) free e-books, and freely
downloadable Matlab packages to analyse your data. Use the
major categories on the top left of the screen to navigate
through this site; the corresponding sub-categories will
appear right next to it in the submenu.
BREAKING NEWS!
Starting October this year, we will be organising
regular 2-day courses on application of GUTS in risk
assessment of pesticides, making use of the user-friendly software
(still under development). More information.
WARNING! For users of BYOM,
see the notes and warnings on the BYOM page. Specifically
pertinent: the likelihood-region method yielded
exaggerated confidence intervals on model
predictions (fixed in version 4.2), and the LPx
calculations (used with GUTS, to calculate
multiplication factors on concentration profiles) is
biassed when there is substantial background
mortality in the calibration data set (fixed in
version 4.2b).
If you are working with
BYOM, and would like to be notified immediately in
case of errors, new versions, etc., email me and I will
include you in a mailing list. I may also use this
mailing list for other important developments such
as new (versions) of the e-books, and new papers.
This saves you the hassle of checking this website
every week ;-).
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Upcoming courses and events
- For 2019, a new round of the DEB telecourse is planned,
and also a classroom part (1-6 April), followed by
workshops (8-9 April), and the international DEB
symposium (10-12 April). This time, the location will be
Brest, France. More information is provided on the symposium
website. Application to the
DEB2019 school is open and the deadline is
extended to February 15, 2019.
- Dedicated 2-day GUTS course, geared towards
professionals in risk assessment of pesticides. 16-18
October, Wageningen, the Netherlands. More information. We still
need to do some work on the organisation, so it is not
possible to register just yet, but save the dates!
- As part of the 2019
SETAC conference in Helsinki, Sandrine Charles is
organising a 1-day short course on GUTS (on 26 May
2019). Download
the flyer.
- Sandrine is also organising a more extensive winter
school 6-10 January 2020 (in Lyon, France)
focussing on ecotox effect models.
- Also at the 2019
SETAC conference in Helsinki, there will be the
spectacular “GUTS to the Max”: Mechanistic Effect Models
Hackathon, organised by Roman Ashauer. More
information.
- Not directly TKTD related, but very interesting: Eawag
summer school in environmental systems analysis
(focusses on Bayesian uncertainty analysis), near
Zurich, 3-7 June 2019. More
information.
Job opportunities for modellers
- Nothing special that I know of.
Latest news
- 9 January 2019: new paper on automated high-throughput
measurements of body size (which could really facilitate
DEB(tox) application in the future). Open
access. Note that this is my 100th (co-)authored
paper ;-).
- 8 December 2018: a new version of the GUTS e-book has
been released at Leanpub. Most
important change is in the statistical treatment. See
version log at the support
page for more details.
- 15 November 2018: a new version of the DEBkiss e-book
has been released at Leanpub.
- 7 September 2018: small update of BYOM to v. 4.2c and
updated GUTS package v. 2.3. More details on the BYOM page.
- 27 August 2018: the EFSA opinion on TKTD models is now
available over
here. This opinion will be pivotal for the
application of GUTS and DEBtox in environmental risk
assessment (in particular for pesticides).
Older news over here.
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