Nutrition Ecology and Ecotoxicology

The course aims, by widening and deepening base ecology notions - such as water and carbon cycles, energy flow through ecosystems, biodiversity and features of population growth - to apply their principles and concepts to the issue of environmental sustainability. Goal of the course is to provide (i) tools for the comprehension and evaluation of the impact on ecosystems of the human activity directed to food production and drinking water supply; (ii) basic concepts of eco-toxicology, through the description of the main classes of environmental pollutants, their mechanisms of action and the preferential access pathways to the organisms, and thei effects on human and biocenosis.

At the end of the course, students should be able to (i) know and understand the diverse environmental effects of the production and transformation of food, and to apply such competences to the identification of practices aimed to limit their impact; (ii) understand the nature, toxicity and mechanism of action of the main environmental contaminants and to apply such notions to limit associated risks. Students are also expected to have developed the ability to critically address the topic covered by the classes, and to have acquired the cultural and technical tools to autonomously deepen environment-related subjects.