Most lost fishing gear is made of non-biodegradable plastics that may sink to the sea floor or drift around in currents. It may remain unnoticed until it shows up on coral reefs, beaches and in other coastal habitats. Stony corals have fragile skeletons and soft tissues that can easily become damaged when they get in contact with lost fishing gear. During a dive survey around Koh Tao, a small island in the Gulf of Thailand, the impact of lost fishing gear (nets, ropes, cages, lines) was studied on corals representing six different growth forms: branching, encrusting, foliaceous, free-living, laminar, and massive. Most gear (>95%) contained plastic. Besides absence of damage (ND), three categories of coral damage were assessed: fresh tissue loss (FTL), tissue loss with algal growth (TLAG), and fragmentation (FR). The position of the corals in relation to the fishing gear was recorded as either growing underneath (Un) or on top (On), whereas corals adjacent to the gear (Ad) were used as controls. Nets formed the dominant type of lost gear, followed by ropes, lines and cages, respectively. Branching corals were most commonly found in contact with the gear and also around it. Tubastraea micranthus was the most commonly encountered coral species, either Un, On, or Ad. Corals underneath gear showed most damage, which predominantly consisted of tissue loss. Fragmentation was less common than expected, which may be related to the low fragility of T. micranthus as dominant branching species. Even if nets serve as substrate for corals, it is recommended to remove them from reefs, where they form a major component of the plastic pollution and cause damage to corals and other reef organisms.

High spatial resolution WorldView-2 (WV2) satellite imagery coupled with field observations have been utilized for mapping the coral reefs around Hendorabi Island in the northern Persian Gulf. In doing so, three standard multispectral bands (red, green, and blue) were selected to produce a classified map for benthic habitats. The in-situ observations were included photo-transects taken by snorkeling in water surface and manta tow technique. The satellite image has been classified using support vector machine (SVM) classifier by considering the information obtained from field measurements as both training and control points data. The results obtained from manta tow demonstrated that the mean total live hard coral coverage was 29.04% ± 2.44% around the island. Massive corals poritiids (20.70%) and branching corals acroporiids (20.33%) showed higher live coral coverage compared to other corals. Moreover, the map produced from satellite image illustrated the distribution of habitats with 78.1% of overall accuracy.

In this study, the genotoxic and histopathological effects of olive-mill wastewater (OMW) on the tissue cells of Lepomis gibbosus were investigated. The fish were caught from Topçam dam lake (Çine/Aydın) and were exposed to the wastewater in 50-L aquariums which contained 0.5 % OMW for 3–5 and 7 days. In genotoxic investigations, a statistically significant increase was observed in the frequency of micronuclei in the L. gibbosus in experimental groups. As a result of the exposure to OMW, histopathological findings which showed a parallel increase with the amount of exposure in the gill, liver and muscle tissues were determined. In the gills, disruption of lamellae shape, shortening and breakage of primary and secondary lamellae, fusion and branching, separation in the secondary lamellae epithelium, ballooning dilation, hyperplasia in support cells and increase in mucus cells were observed. In the parenchyma of the liver, a difference in local staining, focal necrosis, haemorrhaging in necrotic areas, oedema of blood vessels, expansion in sinusoids, congestion and dilation in portal veins, deterioration of vessel walls, cytoplasmic vacuolization in hepatocytes, pyknotic nuclei, decrease in glycogen storage in hepatocytes near the central vein and aggregates of melanomacrophages were also observed. The necrosis in muscle bundles, widespread oedema between myofibrils, degeneration and separation in some muscle groups, decrease in glycogen content, intramuscular oedema and atrophy in the myofibers were determined in the experimental groups.