Fish community manipulation and regulation has been largely overlooked as a mitigation strategy for restoring submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in shallow lakes of the middle and lower Yangtze River Basin (MLYRB). An in-situ fish exclusion experiment and a large-scale lake manipulation were conducted to test the hypothesis that the reasonable removal of benthivorous and herbivorous fish would facilitate the restoration and reconstruction of SAV in shallow lakes within the MLYRB. The in-situ exclusion experiment was conducted from April to October in 2017. Electrofishing was used to remove benthivorous and herbivorous fish from the exclosures. SAV were then artificially planted in the same pattern and density in both exclosures and adjacent open sites, and responses were measured for seven consecutive months. The mean percent coverage and biomass of SAV in the exclosures increased quickly and remained significantly higher than those in open sites over the duration of the experiment. Water quality also improved as turbidity, chlorophyll-a, total phosphorus and total nitrogen in the exclosures remained significantly lower than those in the open sites. After the in-situ experiment, a larger scale manipulation of fish in the entire submerged macrophyte zone (SMZ) was implemented from 2017 to 2020. After removing more than 2/3 of the benthivorous and herbivorous fish biomass by October 2020 in the SMZ, both the species richness and spatial coverage of SAV increased from 2 to 9 and from 1.7% to 32.2%, respectively. Our results provided clear evidence that fish are strong regulators of SAV productivity and that their reasonable removal facilitates ecological recovery. Therefore, we propose that fish community manipulation as implemented in this study be given more attention in addition to the reduction of external nutrient loading when designing projects to restore SAV in shallow lakes of the MLYRB.

Irregular or unnatural artificial light causes severe environmental stress on the survival and health of organisms, which is rapidly becoming a widespread new type of environmental pollution. A series of disruptive behaviors to body homeostasis brought about by light pollution, including metabolic abnormalities, are likely to be the result of circadian rhythm disturbances. Recently, the proposed role of light pollution in metabolic dysregulation has accelerated it into an emerging field. Hence, the regulatory role of light pollution in mammalian metabolic homeostasis is reviewed in this contribution. Light at night is the most widely affected type of light pollution, which disrupts metabolic homeostasis largely due to its disruption of daily food intake patterns, alterations of hormone levels such as melatonin and glucocorticoids, and changes in the rhythm of inflammatory factor production. Besides, light pollution impairs mammalian metabolic processes in an intensity-, photoperiod-, and wavelength-dependent manner, and is also affected by species, gender, and diets. Nevertheless, metabolic disorders triggered by light pollution are not irreversible to some extent. Potential interventions such as melatonin supplementation, recovery to the LD cycle, time-restricted feeding, voluntary exercise, wearing blue light-shied goggles, and bright morning light therapy open a bright avenue to prevent light pollution. This work will help strengthen the relationship between light information and metabolic homeostasis and provide new insights for the better prevention of metabolic disorders and light pollution.

Serious pollution is caused by heavy metals (HMs) emission during sludge combustion treatment, but the addition of minerals has the ability to alleviate the migration of HMs to the gaseous state. In this study, HMs (As, Cr, Zn and Cu) behavior, speciation, and environmental risk during sludge combustion with CaO and montmorillonite (MMT) additive was investigated in the lab-scale tube furnace. The results showed that the sludge combustion was mainly determined by volatile matter. In general, CaO inhibited the volatilization of Cr, Zn, and Cu, but promoted As volatilization. MMT inhibited the volatilization of HMs, but the effect was not obvious at high temperatures. Besides, the improvement of retention effect was not found for Cr and Cu with the increase of CaO at 1000 °C, there might exist threshold value for CaO on HMs retention process. Meanwhile, CaO increased acid-soluble fraction of As significantly at high temperatures, decreased residual fraction of Cr by oxidation, converted Zn and Cu to residual fraction. MMT increased the acid-soluble fraction of As and residual fraction of Cr. In view of the HMs environmental risk in ash, the combustion temperature of sludge was necessary to control under 1000 °C and minerals additive amount was needed to manage above 1000 °C.

Microplastics wildly occur in soil and they can become the carriers of persistent contaminants. However, the influence of microplastics on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons vertical translocation in the soil system after rainfall is limitedly understood. Here, experiments were conducted to study the influence of polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) microplastics on the leaching behavior and bioavailability of phenanthrene (Phe). The adsorption capacity of phenanthrene on the microplastics followed the order of PS > PE > PVC. The Phe concentrations in the top soil layer after 15 days of leaching with water were 30.25, 28.32 and 27.25 mg kg⁻¹ for the treatments of Phe-PS, Phe-PE and Phe-PVC respectively, which is consistent with the adsorption capacities of microplastics. The concentrations of Phe were correlated with the microplastic adsorption capacities at soil depths of 5–45 cm. Under long-term leaching, Phe could reach the deeper soil layer. Phe concentrations significantly decreased in the leachate over time. Phe concentrations in wheat had a positive correlation with that in leachate/leached top soil layer. Our findings are beneficial to accurately evaluate the ecological risk of the combined contamination of PAHs and microplastics, and improve the understanding of the environmental behaviors of different microplastics.

Numerous studies reported that BPA could cause oxidative damage to different tissues in rats/mice. This study aimed to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of BPA exposure on oxidative damage in rats/mice. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science databases from their inception date until July 18, 2020. 20 eligible articles were included in this study. The results showed that BPA could significantly increase the level of MDA (SMD, 16.88; 95%CI, 12.06–21.71), but there was a significant reduction in the contents of antioxidants, such as GR (−10.46, −13.91 ∼ −7.02), CAT (−8.48, −11.66 ∼ −5.30), GPx (−9.37, −11.95 ∼ −6.80), GST (−7.59, −14.51 ∼ −0.67), GSH (−10.64, −13.96 ~ −7.33), and SOD (−6.48, −8.37 ∼ −4.58) in rats/mice. Our study provided clear evidence that BPA exposure could significantly induce oxidative damage in rats/mice. And we also found that the degree of oxidative damage was related to BPA dose, target tissue, intervention means, and exposure duration of BPA.

DNA metabarcoding can provide a high-throughput and rapid method for characterizing responses of communities to environmental stressors. However, within bulk samples, DNA metabarcoding hardly distinguishes live from the dead organisms. Here, both DNA and RNA metabarcoding were applied and compared in experimental freshwater mesocosms conducted for assessment of ecotoxicological responses of zooplankton communities to remediation treatment until 38 days post oil-spill. Furthermore, a novel indicator of normalized vitality (NV), sequence counts of RNA metabarcoding normalized by that of DNA metabarcoding, was developed for assessment of ecological responses. DNA and RNA metabarcoding detected similar taxa richness and rank of relative abundances. Both DNA and RNA metabarcoding demonstrated slight shifts in measured α-diversities in response to treatments. NV presented relatively greater magnitudes of differential responses of community compositions to treatments compared to DNA or RNA metabarcoding. NV declined from the start of the experiment (3 days pre-spill) to the end (38 days post-spill). NV also differed between Rotifer and Arthropoda, possibly due to differential life histories and sizes of organisms. NV could be a useful indicator for characterizing ecological responses to anthropogenic influence; however, the biology of target organisms and subsequent RNA production need to be considered.

Microplastics (MPs) pollution in Tangxun Lake, the largest urban lake in China, was investigated. The average MPs pollution in sediment (1.81 ± 1.75 × 10⁴ items kg⁻¹) is at a high level, while the MPs in lakeshore water (917.77 ± 742.17 items m⁻³) is in the middle to low level compared with existing studies, which is related to the government's protection. Fragments and fibers are the most common shapes in sediment and water, respectively. MPs size <1 mm dominates in the sediment, while the MPs in water has a larger size. The distribution of MPs in the inner lake shows that pellets tend to “hidden” in sediments. Suspected MPs are randomly selected for polymer detection by Micro-Raman microscopy. Polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are the most common polymer types in water, sediment and atmospheric deposition MPs samples. The input of wastewater, fishery and surrounding human activities are the main sources of MPs in sediment. Atmospheric deposition has a great impact on the distribution of MPs, while the contribution of surface runoff to lake MPs is not remarkable. In addition, MPs in sediments have exceeded the environmental carrying capacity. More attention should be focused on the sediment, where huge amounts of MPs are “hidden”.

Submersed macrophytes accumulate large amounts of macro- and trace elements from the environment and, therefore, are frequently used as indicators of water pollution and tools to remove pollutants from contaminated waters. This study provides evidences that the quantity of macro- and trace elements accumulated in the macrophyte Ceratophyllum demersum depends strongly on the seasonality, on the vertical position of the plant material and on the biofilm cover. Element contents of macrophytes with and without biofilm cover and that of vertical plant sections were investigated by an ICP-MS technique in three different habitats, at the beginning and at the end of the vegetation period. Results demonstrated that the element concentrations of Ceratophyllum demersum dropped to one-half and one-eighth by the end of the summer; and the amount of certain elements in the lower part of plants were up to six times higher than in the upper and in plants with well-developed epiphytic microbial community 2-5-fold higher than in plants without biofilm.These results help in phytoremediation practice and in setting up future biomonitoring studies. When it is necessary to calculate the exact amount of elements which can be accumulated by plants in a polluted environment or should be removed from a contaminated water by harvesting macrophytes, it is of high importance to consider the month of the study, the plant parts harvested and the biofilm cover.

The waste-to-energy (WTE) incinerator plant located in the Turin area (Italy) started to recover energy from the combustion of municipal solid waste in 2013. A health surveillance program was implemented to evaluate the potential health effects on the population living near the plant. This program included a longitudinal biomonitoring to evaluate temporal changes of some environmental pollutants, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), in residents living in areas near the Turin incinerator (exposed group, E) compared to those observed in subjects living far from the plant (not exposed group, NE). Ten monohydroxy-PAHs (OH-PAHs), consisting in the principal metabolites of naphthalene, fluorine, phenanthrene, and pyrene, were analyzed in urines collected from the E and NE subjects after one (T₁) and three years (T₂) of plant activity and compared with those determined in the same cohort established before the plant start-up (T₀). Spearman correlation analysis was undertaken to explore possible associations between OH-PAHs and personal characteristics, lifestyle variables, and dietary habits. A linear mixed model (LMM) approach was applied to determine temporal trends of OH-PAHs observed in the E and NE subjects and to evaluate possible differences in trend between the two groups. Temporal trends of OH-PAHs determined by LMM analysis demonstrated that, at all times, the E group had concentrations lower than those assessed in the NE group, all other conditions being equal. Moreover, no increase in OH-PAH concentrations was observed at T₁ and T₂ either in E or in NE group. Significant positive correlations were found between all OH-PAHs and smoking habits. Regarding variables associated to outdoor PAH exposure, residence near high traffic roads and daily time in traffic road was positively correlated with 1-hydroxynaphthalene and 1-hydroxypyrene, respectively. In conclusion, no impact of the WTE plant on exposure to PAHs was observed on the population living near the plant.