Juvenile specimens of the earthworm species Eisenia fetida Savigny, 1826, were exposed in the laboratory to a range of concentrations of the fungicide copper oxychloride. After an eight-week exposure period, the neutral-red retention (NRR) times were measured in the coelomocytes of all the worms that had matured. Life-cycle traits (survival, biomass change, cocoon production, cocoon mass, hatch...

Pesticides are used in large amounts in agriculture and the evaluation of their toxic effects is of major concern to public and environmental health. The aim of the present study was to investigate the genotoxic potential of a commercial formulation of the fungicide mancozeb by the micronucleus test in bone marrow and the comet assay in total blood of Wistar rats. Adult male Wistar rats were tr...

Bioassays using pellets of agar, thatch-agar and turfgrass-agar were developed using benzimidazole-sensitive Penicillium expansum, to detect the fungicide methyl 2-benzimidazole carbamate (MBC) which is the major fungitoxic degradation product of benomyl [methyl 1-(butylcarbamoyl)-2-benzimidazole carbamate] in thatch and turfgrass clippings. These bioassays were used to estimate the amount of f...

Two hundred and fifteen green beans samples from an agricultural region of the Souss (Agadir, Morrocco) were analyzed for endosulfan, dithiocarbamate, bifenthrin, chlorothalonil, iprodion, procymidon and deltamethrin. Of 189 samples that contained pesticide residues, dithiocarbamates (mancozeb and mefenoxam) were detected in 43 (20 %) in the concentration range of 0.045 to 2.651 mg Kg-1. Four o...