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The aquifer north of Vicenza, Italy, is one of the main and most studied drinking water reservoirs within the Veneto region. The area is an intensive cropland, and monitoring of s-triazine herbicides and metabolites has been carried out since the late eighties. This study analysed the trends of atrazine (ATR), terbuthylazine (TBZ), deethyl-atrazine (DEA), and deethyl-terbuthylazine (DET) concentrations from 1987 to 2016 and related the variations of agricultural land use, herbicide load, and pesticide regulations to the residence time of pollutants in the aquifer. In total, 785 water samples collected from 82 selected check wells were analysed with high-resolution gas chromatography combined with mass spectrometry. Non-detects were substituted by one-half the limit of detection. Over the 30 years of monitoring, concentrations of all of the pollutants decreased at all sampling sites. Since the beginning, TBZ and DET residues have been systematically lower than ATR and DEA, respectively, with more than 70% of the data below the limit of detection and never exceeding the European Maximum Acceptable Concentration (MAC) for a single pesticide (0.1 μg/L). The highest concentrations of ATR and DEA showed a spatial shift along the flow direction, suggesting an increase in groundwater residence time from the recharge zone to the accumulation zone of the aquifer. The last residues of ATR were found 27 years after its ban. Although all of the concentrations were lower than those found elsewhere in Europe, the sum of s-triazines overcame the MAC in 20% of the samples. Considering the structural and toxicological similarities of s-triazines, these findings confirm the necessity of better characterisation of the toxicological risk posed by mixtures.

The spread diffusion of wildlife in agroecosystems has induced conflictual interactions with humans, representing a critical issue, especially in terms of damages made on crops. They include deterioration of green and woody parts of crops, removal of seeds, crushing of cultivations, soil degradation. In this regard, a multi-temporal geolocalization and quantification of wildlife impact in agricultural landscapes is still a challenging point to be explored. The purpose of this research is to present a methodological approach, with the involvement of citizens (farmers and fields' owners) in the data collection, to analyze wildlife damages. The study area is the Treviso province, located in North East of Italy. A multi-temporal analysis is carried out considering the period 2009 up to 2018. In detail, a multi-temporal thematic mapping was realized classifying data in terms of wildlife species, damaged crops, and surface covered by affected cultivations. Such data were then processed through multi-variate statistical analysis. The results provide a clear overview of the phenomena in the investigated region, highlighting the fact that the uncontrolled spread of wildlife is responsible for severe damages on agroecosystems. In this connection, damages made by winged species and wild boar are the most numerous, respectively, with 1007 and 497 damages within the considered period. Corn is the most damaged crop, with a total of 977 damages observed on it between 2009 and 2018. Cross tabulation and cluster analysis have confirmed the magnitude of the problem taken into account. Such information could be used then by the local administrations to better understand the phenomena, providing suitable measures to contain it.

Glyphosate is the most common herbicide worldwide, and its impact on the environment has increasingly been scrutinized. Glyphosate-based formulations can contain co-formulants, among which are surfactants. This study aimed to investigate whether the presence of an alkyl polyglucoside-based surfactant, Triton CG-110, affects the adsorption, leaching, and mineralisation of glyphosate in the soil. The experiments were conducted in two soils with different textures (sandy and clay) and in washed sand. Glyphosate and surfactant mixtures were applied at realistic field rates. Because of ponding and scarce leaching from the field soil, the leaching experiments were conducted only with washed sand. The results indicate a reduction of glyphosate adsorption in washed sand (from Kf = 13.5 to 3.99 μg1−1/n (ml)1/n g−1) and in sandy soil (from Kf = 165 to 90.8 μg1−1/ n (ml)1/n g−1) when using a Triton CG-110 concentration of 0.5 %, which corresponds to that of a spraying solution applied in the field, whereas adsorption in clay soil was unaffected. Triton CG-110 did not significantly affect glyphosate leaching in washed sand or mineralisation in any of the tested soils. The results indicate that Triton CG-110 is unlikely to significantly affect the environmental fate of glyphosate in the soil at environmentally relevant concentrations.

Seed predation by arthropods can contribute in regulating population and community dynamics of weeds. While the role of insects, and especially ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) as seed predators in crop fields is well studied, the drivers of predation stability and the relationships between species diversity and predation are less understood. The aims of the study were: 1) to unveil the direct relationships between predator community diversity and seed predation intensity and stability, and 2) to test the effects of soil disturbance (conventional vs. conservation tillage) and distance from field margin on seed predator communities and predation. Seed predation was measured using seed cards, and predator communities were sampled using pitfall traps over two years. Granivorous ground beetles, ants and crickets were the most abundant seed predators in both conventional and conservation tillage fields. Abundant and diverse predator communities were beneficial to predation intensity and stability. However, in communities dominated by large predators, an increase in number of species was related to a partial suppression of seed predation. Soil disturbance per se did not influence the overall predator community composition and predation, but it modified their spatial patterns within the fields. At the margins of conventional tillage fields, predation was lower and patchier than at the margins of conservation tillage fields. However, predation increased more steeply towards the center of conventional tillage field. Our results could find applications in sustainable weed management through biological control, as well as in better understanding the role of functional diversity in regulating ecosystem services.