"Is there anybody else out there?" – First Insights from a Suspect Screening for Phytotoxins in Surface Water

To protect themselves, plants can produce toxic secondary metabolites (phytotoxins) that appear with widely varying structures and negative effects. These phytotoxins often show similar properties as known aquatic micropollutants in terms of mobility, persistence, toxicity, and possibly also ecotoxicity. However, their occurrence in surface waters remains largely unknown, which is also due to unknown ability of available screening approaches to...