Evaluation of nitrogen and heavy metal pollution in southern Caspian Sea: Risk assessment and modeling approach.

Industrial, agricultural, and recreational activities dump several pollutants into the Caspian Sea, which is one of the main water bodies of Iran. Therefore, performing risk assessments would be required as part of the monitoring programs. Herein, non-cancer health risk assessment of the consumption of macroalgae was performed and the ecological risk assessment of metal pollution in sediments of the southern Caspian Sea was presented using sediment quality guidelines (SQGs), enrichment factors (EF), contamination factors (CF), contamination degrees (CD), pollution load indices (PLI), geo accumulation indices (I), and potential ecological risk indices (RI).

Toward Isolation of Palytoxins: Liquid Chromatography Coupled to Low- or High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry for the Study on the Impact of Drying Techniques, Solvents and Materials.

Palytoxin (PLTX) and its congeners are emerging toxins held responsible for a number of human poisonings following the inhalation of toxic aerosols, skin contact, or the ingestion of contaminated seafood. Despite the strong structural analogies, the relative toxic potencies of PLTX congeners are quite different, making it necessary to isolate them individually in sufficient amounts for toxicological and analytical purposes. Previous studies showed poor PLTX recoveries with a dramatic decrease in PLTX yield throughout each purification step.

Ecological implications beyond the ecotoxicity of plastic debris on marine phytoplankton assemblage structure and functioning.

Plastic pollution is a global issue posing a threat to marine biota with ecological implications on ecosystem functioning. Micro and nanoplastic impact on phytoplankton autotrophic species (e.g.

Trace elements and stable isotopes in penguin chicks and eggs: A baseline for monitoring the Ross Sea MPA and trophic transfer studies.

Multi-tissue trace elements (TEs), C, N concentrations and stable isotopes (δC, δN) of chick carcasses and eggs of Adélie and Emperor penguins were studied to i) provide reference data before the recent institution of the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area (Antarctica), and ii) provide conversion factors that allow estimating C, N, δC and δN in edible tissues from non-edible ones, thus improving the use of stable isotopes in contamination and trophic transfer studies. Higher concentrations of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn and Pb were found in chick carcasses than in eggs, suggesting increasing contamination in recent decades and high toxicity risks for penguin consumers. Isotopic conversion factors highlighted small differences among body tissues and conspecifics.

Ciguatera Mini Review: 21st Century Environmental Challenges and the Interdisciplinary Research Efforts Rising to Meet Them.

Globally, the livelihoods of over a billion people are affected by changes to marine ecosystems, both structurally and systematically. Resources and ecosystem services, provided by the marine environment, contribute nutrition, income, and health benefits for communities. One threat to these securities is ciguatera poisoning; worldwide, the most commonly reported non-bacterial seafood-related illness.

Nitrogen and metal pollution in the southern Caspian Sea: a multiple approach to bioassessment.

The Caspian Sea hosts areas of high ecological value as well as industrial, leisure, and agricultural activities that dump into the water body different kinds of pollutants. In this complex context, a proper description of the origin and potential sources of pollution is necessary to address management and mitigation actions aimed at preserving the quality of the water resource and the integrity of the ecosystems. Here, we aimed at detecting sources of both nitrogen inputs, by N stable isotope analysis of macroalgae, and metals in macroalgae and sediments in two highly anthropized coastal stretches at the Iranian side of the Caspian Sea.

Resilience of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica following pulse-type disturbance.

Understanding the response of species to disturbance and the ability to recover is crucial for preventing their potential collapse and ecosystem phase shifts. Explosive submarine activity, occurring in shallow volcanic vents, can be considered as a natural pulse disturbance, due to its suddenness and high intensity, potentially affecting nearby species and ecosystems. Here, we present the response of Posidonia oceanica, a long-lived seagrass, to an exceptional submarine volcanic explosion, which occurred in the Aeolian Archipelago (Italy, Mediterranean Sea) in 2002, and evaluate its resilience in terms of time required to recover after such a pulse event.

Resistance of seagrass habitats to ocean acidification via altered interactions in a tri-trophic chain.

Despite the wide knowledge about prevalent effects of ocean acidification on single species, the consequences on species interactions that may promote or prevent habitat shifts are still poorly understood. Using natural CO vents, we investigated changes in a key tri-trophic chain embedded within all its natural complexity in seagrass systems. We found that seagrass habitats remain stable at vents despite the changes in their tri-trophic components.

Species richness and vulnerability to disturbance propagation in real food webs.

A central issue in ecology is understanding how complex and biodiverse food webs persist in the face of disturbance, and which structural properties affect disturbance propagation among species. However, our comprehension of assemblage mechanisms and disturbance propagation in food webs is limited by the multitude of stressors affecting ecosystems, impairing ecosystem management. By analysing directional food web components connecting species along food chains, we show that increasing species richness and constant feeding linkage density promote the establishment of predictable food web structures, in which the proportion of species co-present in one or more food chains is lower than what would be expected by chance.

Response to salinity and temperature changes in the alien Asian copepod Pseudodiaptomus marinus introduced in the Black Sea.

The salinity tolerance and the effect of temperature were studied on the behavior and motor activity of the nonindigenous Indo-Pacific calanoid copepod Pseudodiaptomus marinus, first found in Sevastopol Bay (Black Sea) in autumn 2016. According to the index of median lethal salinity (LS ), the salinity tolerance range of adult P. marinus collected at 18.

Plant and sediment properties in seagrass meadows from two Mediterranean CO vents: Implications for carbon storage capacity of acidified oceans.

Assessing the status of important carbon sinks such as seagrass meadows is of primary importance when dealing with potential climate change mitigation strategies. This study examined plant and sediment properties in seagrass meadows (Cymodocea nodosa (Ucria) Asch.) from two high pCO-low pH Mediterranean vent systems, located at Milos (Greece) and Vulcano (Italy) Islands, providing insights on carbon storage potential in future acidified oceans.

Biogenic habitat shifts under long-term ocean acidification show nonlinear community responses and unbalanced functions of associated invertebrates.

Experiments have shown that increasing dissolved CO concentrations (i.e. Ocean Acidification, OA) in marine ecosystems may act as nutrient for primary producers (e.

The fate of microplastics in an Italian Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The emerged threat of microplastics (MPs) in aquatic ecosystems is posing a new challenges in environmental management, in particular the civil Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) which can act both as collectors of MPs from anthropic use and as a source to natural environments. In this study, MP fate was investigated in one of the biggest WWTPs of Northern Italy, built at the beginning of the 2000s and which serves a population equivalent of about 1,200,000, by evaluating their presence at the inlet (IN), the removal efficiency after the settler (SET) and at the outlet (OUT), and their transfer to sludge. Samples were collected in three days of a week and plastic debris was characterized in terms of shape, size and polymer composition using the Fourier Transform Infrared Microscope System (μFT-IR).

Abundance and characterization of microplastics in the coastal waters of Tuscany (Italy): The application of the MSFD monitoring protocol in the Mediterranean Sea.

Monitoring efforts are required to understand the sources, distribution and abundance of microplastic pollution. To verify the abundance of microplastics along the Tuscan coastal waters (Italy), water-column and surface samples were collected in two seasons across four transects at different distances to the coast (0.5, 5, 10 and 20 km), within the implementation of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

Bioindicators for monitoring marine litter ingestion and its impacts on Mediterranean biodiversity.

The Mediterranean Sea has been described as one of the most affected areas by marine litter in the world. Although effects on organisms from marine plastic litter ingestion have been investigated in several oceanic areas, there is still a lack of information from the Mediterranean Sea. The main objectives of this paper are to review current knowledge on the impact of marine litter on Mediterranean biodiversity, to define selection criteria for choosing marine organisms suitable for use as bioindicator species, and to propose a methodological approach to assessing the harm related to marine litter ingestion in several Mediterranean habitats and sub-regions.