Organophosphorus Pesticides in the Natural Environment: Detection Methods, Distribution, and Toxic Effects

With the development of agriculture, organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs) have been used extensively as insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides. They have become the most widely used category of pesticides, accounting for about 40% of all pesticide use globally. However, although OPPs have lower environmental persistence and are less prone to bioaccumulation compared with other types of pesticides, their acute and chronic toxicity to organisms should not be underestimated. OPPs cause a variety of toxicities to organisms in the environment, the most notable of which is neurotoxicity. Their residues in the environment pose potential threats to ecosystems and human health. Therefore, it is necessary to understand limits of current detection systems, their environmental distribution, and toxicity mechanism. This narrative review summarizes the methods for detecting OPPs, their environmental distribution, and further explores their toxic effects and mechanisms. The main detection methods for OPPs are based on chromatography and spectroscopy, with more and more new methods emerging during continuous development. Different detection methods facilitate the study of the distribution and toxicity mechanisms of OPPs. The contamination of OPPs is distributed in water bodies and soils all over the world and poses a threat to the environment and human beings. The importance of detection methods to the study of contamination distribution and toxicity mechanisms is discussed, providing a theoretical foundation and scientific basis for subsequent studies.