Reproductive and behavioral responses of earthworms exposed to nano-sized titanium dioxide in soil
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Nanometer-sized titanium dioxide (nano-TiO(2) ) is found in a number of commercial products; however, its effects on soil biota are largely unknown. In the present study, earthworms (Eisenia andrei and Eisenia fetida) were exposed to three types of commercially available, uncoated TiO(2) nanomaterials with nominal diameters of 5, 10, and 21 nm. Nanomaterials were characterized for particle size, agglomeration, surface charge, chemical composition, and purity. Standard lethality, reproduction, and avoidance tests, as well as a juvenile growth test, were conducted in artificial soil or field soil amended with nano-TiO(2) by two methods, liquid dispersion and dry powder mixing. All studies included a micrometer-sized TiO(2) control. Exposure to field and artificial soil containing between 200 and 10,000 mg nano-TiO(2) per kilogram of dry soil (mg/kg) had no significant effect (p > 0.05) on juvenile survival and growth, adult earthworm survival, cocoon production, cocoon viability, or total number of juveniles hatched from these cocoons. However, earthworms avoided artificial soils amended with nano-TiO(2) . The lowest concentration at which avoidance was observed was between 1,000 and 5,000 mg nano-TiO(2) per kilogram of soil, depending on the TiO(2) nanomaterial applied. Furthermore, earthworms differentiated between soils amended with 10,000 mg/kg nano-TiO(2) and micrometer-sized TiO(2) . A positive relationship between earthworm avoidance and TiO(2) specific surface area was observed, but the relationship between avoidance and primary particle size was not determined because of the agglomeration and aggregation of nano-TiO(2) materials. Biological mechanisms that may explain earthworm avoidance of nano-TiO(2) are discussed. Results of the present study indicate that earthworms can detect nano-TiO(2) in soil, although exposure has no apparent effect on survival or standard reproductive parameters.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".