Fish species have attracted considerable interest in studies assessing biological responses to environmental contaminants. In this study, the attention has been focussed on fishbone of selected fish species from a highly polluted marine area, Augusta Bay (Italy, Central Mediterranean) to evaluate if toxicant elements had an effect on the mineralogical structure of bones, although macroscopic deformations were not evident. In particular, an attempt was made to evaluate if bone mineral features, such as crystallinity, mineral maturity and carbonate/phosphate mineral content, determined by XR-Diffraction and FT-IR Spectroscopy, suffered negative effects due to trace element levels in fishbone, detected by ICP-OES. Results confirmed the reliability of the use of diffractometric and spectroscopic techniques to assess the degree of crystallinity and the mineral maturity in fishbone. In addition, in highly polluted areas, Hg and Cr contamination induced a process of premature aging of fishbone, altering its biochemical and mineral contents.

The influence of wind direction and speed on the transport of vehicular air pollutants was investigated using a mobile laboratory in an urban area. We considered three spatial scales covering typical transport phenomena observed in urban areas: micro-scale (a few tens of meters), middle-scale (a few hundred meters) and neighborhood-scale (a few kilometers). Particle-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were selected as an indicator of vehicle emissions in the roadway environment. From the micro-scale measurements, we found a significant difference in the concentration of particle-bound PAHs within a small spatial area, on a two-way road, due to the effect of wind direction when the prevailing wind direction was constant. In the middle-scale experiments, an exponential decrease in the concentration of particle-bound PAHs was observed with distance from the intersection in the direction of the prevailing wind, which is consistent with the results of previous studies. The concentration of particle-bound PAHs near the road was ∼10 times higher than that at 200 m away from the road due to the significantly low background concentration, indicating that particle-bound PAHs are a good indicator of vehicle emissions in a roadway environment. From long-distance (∼15 km) traveling measurements made over 14 days, we found that the average concentration of particle-bound PAHs on the road decreased as the prevailing wind speed increased at the neighborhood-scale, when the wind speed was higher than 2.0 m/s. This analysis, over three spatial scales, will be helpful in understanding the effect of wind on air pollution in a roadway environment in urban areas.

Aerosols released from biomass burning affect the tropospheric chemistry, radiation budget and cloud processes and hence can cause significant climate modifications. Due to certain economical reasons, the open burning of crop residue has become popular in Pakistan. In the present work we have analyzed the optical and physical properties of aerosols during crop residue burning over Lahore, a central location of Pakistan. The data from ground based Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), satellite based MODIS and CALIPSO remote sensing instruments have been used for the characterization of aerosols during crop residue burning event of October 2010. The maximum value (2.75) of daily mean AOD was observed on 20 October 2010 and the next highest value of 2.64 was observed on 19 October 2010, indicating heavy aerosol loading over Lahore on both days due to intense crop residue burning. The fine mode AOD values ranged from 0.14 to 2.68 (on 20 October 2010) with average value of 0.87 during October 2010 over Lahore. It was found that fine mode aerosols have greater contribution than coarse mode aerosols towards total aerosol burden indicating the presence of fine mode (crop residue burning) aerosols over Lahore. Cluster analysis showed that the mixed aerosols (biomass burning and urban-industrial) were present during the heavy aerosol loading period over Lahore. The highest volume concentration of fine mode occurred on 19 and 20 October 2010 representing the dominance of fine mode aerosols. Due to scattering of incoming solar radiation by intense smoke observed on 19 and 20 October 2010 high values of SSA (∼0.95) were found. HYSPLIT model backward trajectories showed that the winds transported aerosols from southeast and northwest directions.

Sterols and hydrocarbons were determined in the surface sediments from the transitional environment between Paranaguá Bay and the shallow continental shelf in the South Atlantic to assess the sources of organic matter (OM) and the contamination status of an area exposed to multiple anthropogenic inputs. Total aliphatic hydrocarbon concentrations were less than 10μgg−1, which is typical of unpolluted sediments, and related to recent inputs from higher terrestrial plants. Total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon ranged from<DL to 14.41ngg−1 (dry weight), which was predominantly derived from combustion with non-detectable levels occurring in 65% of the samples. Sterols typically related to marine sources predominated in the analysed sediments. Hence, the study area was protected from human activity. The relative absence of anthropogenic input and OM preservation clearly indicate that the organic markers analysed can be used to investigate the biogenic input of sedimentary OM in the study area.

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), are frequently detected in biota from Antarctica, whereas no data are available for their replacements, such as novel flame retardants (N-FRs). This study presented the occurrence of several N-FRs, PBDEs, and PCBs in tissue samples of an Antarctic rock cod (Trematomus bernacchii), a young gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua), and a brown skua (Stercorarius antarcticus) collected from King George Island. The total concentrations of N-FRs (ΣN-FRs; mean: 931pg/g dry weight (dw)) were comparable to PBDEs (Σ8PBDEs; 681pg/gdw), which were much lower than PCBs (ΣDL-PCBs; 12,800pg/gdw). Overall, skua contained two to three orders of magnitude higher contamination than penguin and fish. In the future, more attention should be focused on the fate of N-FRs in Antarctica, where usages have increased since PBDEs were banned. To our knowledge, this is the first report of N-FRs in biota from Antarctica.

Human activity is contributing increasing noise to marine ecosystems. Recent studies have examined the effects of boat noise on marine fishes, but there is limited understanding of the prevalence of this type of sound source. This investigation tracks vessel noise on three reefs in the US Virgin Islands National Park over four months in 2013. Ambient noise levels ranged from 106 to 129dBrms re 1μPa (100Hz–20kHz). Boat noise occurred in 6–12% of samples. In the presence of boat noise, ambient noise in a low-frequency band (100–1000Hz) increased by >7dB above baseline levels and sound levels were significantly higher. The frequency with the most acoustic energy shifted to a significantly lower frequency when boat noise was present during the day. These results indicate the abundance of boat noise and its overlap with reef organism sound production, raising concern for the communication abilities of these animals.

Results show that Microcystis aeruginosa can utilize both dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP) and orthophosphate (DIP) even under low phosphorus (P) conditions to sustain its growth. Total P concentrations decreased markedly in all three P source treatments. Alkaline phosphatase activity (APA) in the different P sources tested changed in response to the DOP and DIP. The APA of DOP groups remained low after decreasing significantly, but the APA in the DIP treatments remained high during the period of culture. Changes in APA at different PO43−–P concentrations in a culture medium revealed negative correlations between APA and DIP. However, a positive relationship was observed between APA and DOP under low P concentrations. These findings indicate that M. aeruginosa can regulate its physiological metabolism to acclimate to low ambient DIP environments.

The maintenance of navigation channels to ports and the development of their facilities present a need to conduct dredging operations, and the subsequent disposal of dredged material at sea. Contaminant concentrations in candidate dredged material are determined and their possible impacts considered during the licensing process, which can result in the exclusion of some material from sea disposal. Monitoring of disposal sites is conducted in order to ensure that no undesirable impacts are occurring. In this study we consider the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in sediments at a number of disposal sites monitored in 2013 and variations in concentrations over time at three sites during the period 2008–2013. These were assessed using established sediment quality guidelines. Elevated PAH concentrations were generally observed only within the boundaries of the disposal sites studied.

A quantitative evaluation of the fate of 129I, released from the European reprocessing plants of Sellafield (UK) and La Hague (France), has been made by means of a Lagrangian dispersion model. Transport of radionuclides to the Arctic Ocean has been determined. Thus, 5.1 and 16.6TBq of 129I have been introduced in the Arctic from Sellafield and La Hague respectively from 1966 to 2012. These figures represent, respectively, 48% and 55% of the cumulative discharge to that time. Inventories in the North Atlantic, including shelf seas, are 4.4 and 13.8TBq coming from Sellafield and La Hague respectively. These figures are significantly different from previous estimations based on field data. The distribution of these inventories among several shelf seas and regions has been evaluated as well. Mean ages of tracers have been finally obtained, making use of the age-averaging hypothesis. It has been found that mean ages for Sellafield releases are about 3.5year larger than for La Hague releases.

546 Vibrio isolates from rearing seawater (292 strains) and intestines of abalone (254 strains) were tested to ten antibiotics using Kirby–Bauer diffusion method. Resistant rates of abalone-derived Vibrio isolates to chloramphenicol (C), enrofloxacin (ENX) and norfloxacin (NOR) were <28%, whereas those from seawater showed large fluctuations in resistance to each of the tested antibiotics. Many strains showed higher resistant rates (>40%) to kanamycin (KNA), furazolidone (F), tetracycline (TE), gentamicin (GM) and rifampin (RA). 332 isolates from seawater (n=258) and abalone (n=74) were resistant to more than three antibiotics. Peaked resistant rates of seawater-derived isolates to multiple antibiotics were overlapped in May and August. Statistical analysis showed that pH had an important effect on resistant rates of abalone-derived Vibrio isolates to RA, NOR, and ENX. Salinity and dissolved oxygen were negatively correlated with resistant rates of seawater-derived Vibrio isolates to KNA, RA, and PG.