Extremophiles and Their Role in The Bioremediation of Emerging Pollutants in Marine Environments

Laboratory microcosms are described for assessing the fate and effects of pollutants in marine and estuarine environments. These systems focus on specific ecosystem processes and interactions and are interdependant in that the results of all are necessary for a complete description of a pollutant's environmental impact. The following individual systems are described using methyl parathion as the pollutant: Environmental Fate Screening System; Eco‐Core System; Continuous Flow Systems; Aquatic Gradient Avoidance Response System; Benthic Bioassay System.

Plastic pollution in the marine environment

Do political promotion incentive and fiscal incentive of local governments matter for the marine environmental pollution? Evidence from China’s coastal areas

This study investigated the perception of residents’ marine environmental pollution in Busan, one of the representative marine tourism cities in Korea as well as analyzed the relationship between marine environmental pollution and their marine tourism activities. This also conducted a survey to know the status and preference of Busan marine tourism used by local residents. As a result, the residents of Busan showed a medium level of interest in marine environmental pollution, not as high. Particularly, respondents in their 30s and 50s showed that their interest level were below the medium score. Respondents thought that 'waste' was the most important factor that polluted the marine environment. They responded that 'the enhancement of each private individual awareness towards marine environment protection' is the most important way to solve the problem. Some of the respondents have suffered direct or indirect damage due to the marine environmental pollution. Respondents rated that pollution of the marine environment has a significant impact on the reduction of marine tourism. The respondents who prefer marine tourism showed higher interest in marine environmental pollution. Meanwhile, the residents’ preference level of Busan marine tourism was more than average. The residents, responded that they do not prefer marine tourism in Busan, pointed to the 'crowded people' and the 'expensive price in the tourist sights’ as the main reasons for their negative response.

In order to identify the real impact of environmental regulation on the marine environment pollution in China, the paper constructs a panel threshold model of environmental regulation on the marine environment pollution, by adopting data from year 2006-2016 of 11 coastal provinces and cities in China, perform a linear regression analysis and a threshold regression analysis, taking environmental regulation as a threshold and explanatory variable, population at the end of the year, the GOP and total population, GDP as control variables, the annual amount of wastewater discharged directly into the sea as dependent variable. The results show that environmental regulation cannot slow down marine environmental pollution, China's environmental regulation has a significant threshold effect on marine environmental pollution, GOP and GDP have significant positive impacts on marine environmental pollution, and impact of GOP is higher than that of GDP, and population has insignificant negative impacts on marine environmental pollution. Therefore, regulations should be improved to protect the marine environment.

In this study we tested the use of seabird blood as a bioindicator of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) pollution in the marine environment. Blood cells of breeding yellow-legged gulls (Larus michahellis) were able to track spatial and temporal changes consistent with the massive oil pollution pulse that resulted from the Prestige oil spill. Thus, in 2004, blood samples from yellow-legged gulls breeding in colonies that were in the trajectory of the spill doubled in theirtotal PAH concentrations when compared to samples from unoiled colonies. Furthermore, PAH levels in gulls from an oiled colony decreased by nearly a third in two consecutive breeding seasons (2004 and 2005). Experimental evidence was gathered by means of an oil-ingestion field experiment. The total concentration of PAHs in the blood of gulls given oil supplements was 30% higher compared to controls. This strongly suggested that measures of PAHs in the blood of gulls are sensitive to the ingestion of small quantities of oil. Our study provides evidence that seabirds were exposed to residual Prestige oil 17 months after the spill commenced and gives support to the nondestructive use of seabirds as biomonitors of oil pollution in marine environments.

The pollution of microplastics is becoming increasingly serious, and rising evidence shows that the marine environment, especially sediments are major sinks of these plastics. So far, microplastic particles have been reported as widespread in large quantities in various water body and sedimentary environments such as beach, shallow coastal area, estuary, fjord, continental shelf environments, and deep-sea environments. Moreover, recent studies showed that the existence of microplastics would influence the structure and function of marine environmental microbial communities, thereby affecting the nitrogen/carbon cycling processes in marine environment especially sediments. Considering increasing microplastic pollution in marine environment especially sediment, the impact of plastics on marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycling deserves in-depth investigation. Therefore, in the present study, information on occurrences and fate of microplastic particles in different marine environments, and their effects, mainly on marine ecosystems and biogeochemical carbon and nitrogen cycles, is reviewed.

Chapter 10 - Metal pollution in marine environment: sources and impact assessment

How do humans recognize and face challenges of microplastic pollution in marine environments? A bibliometric analysis.

Micro plastic pollution in oceans is a growing global issue. These small plastic particles, less than 5 millimeters in size, come from broken-down larger plastics, micro beads in personal care products, and synthetic fibers from textiles. Once in marine environments, micro plastics are consumed by aquatic organisms, endangering marine ecosystems. Furthermore, micro plastics carry harmful chemicals, contributing to further contamination of marine habitats. Tackling this issue requires international cooperation, stronger regulations, and creative approaches to minimize plastic waste and promote environmental sustainability. Researching micro plastic pollution in marine environments is essential to understanding its widespread effects on ecosystems, marine organisms, and human health. Micro plastics are ubiquitous, impacting even the most isolated ocean areas. When ingested by marine life, they can cause physical damage, reproductive challenges, and disrupt food webs. Furthermore, micro plastics absorb and carry toxic chemicals, worsening environmental contamination. Studying these effects is vital for shaping effective regulations and creating solutions to reduce pollution. This research is key to protecting marine biodiversity and maintaining the long-term health and sustainability of ocean ecosystems for future generations. The study of micro plastic pollution in marine environments follows a structured approach. Researchers collect water, sediment, and biological samples from various marine zones, including coastal and deep-sea areas. These samples undergo processes like filtration, density separation, or chemical digestion to extract micro plastics. Microscopic analysis, often paired with spectroscopic techniques like Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) or Raman spectroscopy, is used to identify and examine micro plastic particles. Researchers also investigate how marine organisms ingest micro plastics and explore the potential bioaccumulation within food chains. The gathered data is crucial for understanding the scale, sources, and impacts of micro plastic pollution on marine ecosystems. Alternative taken as Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), Polypropylene (PP), Polystyrene (PS), Nylon (Polyamide), Polyethylene (PE), Acrylic (PMMA), Cellulose Acetate, Biodegradable Plastics (PLA), Micro beads (Polyethylene). Evaluation preference taken as Biodegradability, Toxicity, Environmental Impact, Cost, Availability, Regulatory Compliance. In this context, Biodegradable Plastics (PLA) occupy the top position on the table, while Polystyrene (PS) is ranked at the bottom.

Marine model fish medaka and their embryos can be used as an ideal research materials in the field of marine ecotoxicology due to their highly sensitive to various environmental pollutants. In this study, we took marine medaka (Oryzias melastigma) and their embryos as subject materials, and used the activities of embryonic EROD (7-ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase) and Caspase-3/7 as biomarkers to study the typical polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) such as benzo (a) pyrene, phenanthrene and pyrene induced the toxicity and dose-response relationship of marine fish. The results showed that both of EROD activity and Caspase-3/7 activity in embryos could be induced by benzo(a)pyrene, phenanthrene and pyrene significantly. In particular, the significant induction of EROD activity by specific PAHs can be used for early warning and PAHs detection in the marine environment. The Caspase-3/7 in the fertilized eggs(1-3 dpf) can also be significantly induced by PAHs which can be used to monitor PAHs pollution as another promising biomarkers. In general, these methods to quantify and assess PAHs pollution in the marine environment are sensitive and have good application prospects.

Effects of polyethylene and polystyrene microplastics on bioaccumulation and toxicity of dibutyl phthalate in Mytilisepta virgata.

In view of the increasingly serious problem of marine ecological environmental pollution, the traditional marine environmental corrosive pollution monitoring technology has poor monitoring accuracy and poor monitoring timeliness, and the improvement of the marine environmental corrosive pollution monitoring technology under the cloud computing platform is proposed. The research significance and corrosion influence factors of steel corrosion in the marine environment are described, and the research progress of corrosion mechanism in five different zones of the marine environment is reviewed. Cloud computing parallelizes the processing of corrosive pollution data in the marine environment through virtualization and distributed technology, which greatly improves the efficiency of the algorithm. This paper studies the existing cloud computing platform and ocean monitoring system architecture, uses the distributed architecture to design a cloud computing-oriented ocean monitoring system and meets the design requirements in data collection and data processing. The experimental results show that the precision of marine environmental corrosion pollution monitoring technology proposed in this paper is 96% on average, and the completion rate of monitoring images is 82% on average, which can effectively realize marine environmental corrosion pollution monitoring.

Governance and Socio-Ecological Aspects of Plastics Pollution in Coastal and Marine Environments

Research on microplastic and heavy metal pollution in marine environments has rapidly expanded, with key publications and institutions contributing to the development of standardised methodologies and definitions. This study employs bibliometric analysis to evaluate research trends, using tools such as VOSviewer and Microsoft Excel to systematically analyse 147 publications from the Scopus database (2014-2024). Accordingly, the analysis reveals significant growth in the field, particularly driven by research from China and India. In addition, the findings indicate that China and India are leading contributors, with a substantial increase in research output since 2018. Recent trends focus on microplastics in wastewater, human consumption, and emerging sources such as synthetic fibres. Furthermore, the study identifies Estuarine, Coastal, and Shelf Science as the most cited journal and highlights the dominance of environmental and marine science in the research landscape. Overall, these results underscore the increasing significance of addressing these pollutants and offer valuable insights for guiding future research and policy development in the management of microplastic and heavy metal pollution in marine environments.