CEST2025

In order to safeguard terrestrial biodiversity in Europe from harmful effects of anthropogenic chemicals, there is a need for better monitoring of exposure of wildlife to these chemicals, across various biomes, and at all trophic levels from soil micro-organisms to apex species, at pan-European scale. This can then inform, inter alia, environmental risk assessment of chemicals, the design of appropriate risk management measures, and assessment of effectiveness of chemicals regulations. Despite decades of research on exposure to anthropogenic chemicals in terrestrial wildlife, there are few examples of one-off studies or monitoring programmes that focus on the transfer of chemicals across multiple trophic levels, from soil to apex species, in the terrestrial environment, and no such monitoring takes place at pan-European scale. Such periodic monitoring requires an effective sampling strategy that provides for the selection of representative wildlife food chains, the selection of representative organisms at each trophic level, the selection of sampling locations, replication to allow for statistically robust results, and co-location of samples in both space and time. Sampling also needs to be guided by a protocol that ensures best practice and ethically acceptable sampling methods are used for sampling at each trophic level, and ensures that the same sampling methods are used for all food chains studied. This poster outlines such a sampling strategy and protocol developed under the Horizon Europe project TerraChem.