After Deepwater Horizon oil reached the Florida coast, oil was buried in Pensacola Beach (PB) sands to ~70cm depth, resulting in Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon (TPH) concentrations up to ~2kg per meter of beach. This study followed the decomposition of the buried oil and the factors influencing its degradation. The abundance of bacteria in oiled sand increased by 2 orders of magnitude within one week after oil burial, while diversity decreased by ~50%. Half-lives of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons reached 25 and 22days, respectively. Aerobic microbial oil decomposition, promoted by tidal pumping, and human cleaning activities effectively removed oil from the beach. After one year, concentrations of GC-amenable hydrocarbons at PB were similar to those in the uncontaminated reference beach at St. George Island/FL, and microbial populations that disappeared after the oil contamination had reestablished. Yet, oxihydrocarbons can be found at PB to the present day.

White muscle concentrations of As, Cd, Cu, Fe, Se, and Zn were investigated in Atlantic- and Indian-bigeye tuna (BET) (Thunnus obesus) from 6 regions. As and Cd muscle concentrations were significantly higher in the Indian-BET than in the Atlantic-BET, whereas the Indian-BET caught in the waters off South Africa revealed the highest As, Se, and Zn muscle concentrations. Accordingly, multidimensional scaling separated them into two oceanic groups. Positive linear relationships between muscle Cd concentration and fork length (FL) were established in both oceans. For the other elements, only muscle-Fe and FL relationship was found in the Atlantic-BET. 10.3% of BET > 145 cm FL from both oceans possessed muscle Cd concentrations exceeding the food safety limit (0.1 μg g−1 wet weight) set by the European Commission. Increased Cd, Cu and Zn pollution was found in the Atlantic Ocean compared with previous data, with higher levels found in the Indian Ocean.

Owing to the environmental sensitivity of ciliate species, the monitoring and assessment of these communities can indicate the health of the aquatic environment. Sampling for loricate ciliates was carried out during different seasons at three different locations in the estuarine and coastal waters of Kochi, Southwest coast of India. The loricate ciliate community comprising of 27 species belonging to 10 genera revealed significant differences among the three sampling locations. The maximum numerical abundance and less species diversity of loricate ciliates were recorded at the estuarine locations whereas the minimum abundance and more species diversity were encountered in the coastal waters. Multivariate statistical analyses revealed that Tintinnopsis beroidea and Tintinnopsis uruguayensis were correlated positively with nutrients in the estuarine environment, which receives large amount of anthropogenic inputs. Thus, we propose that these two loricate ciliates may be considered as a potential bioindicator of eutrophication status in marine ecosystems.

Plastic is produced today in large quantities and used for many purposes. At the end of use, a large part of it gets into the environment, often into the sea and there it is fragmented into the smallest fragments, so-called microplastic (MP). MPs pose a serious challenge to the marine environment such as the sources and properties of MP particles, their impact on marine organisms, and the challenges of environmental pollution. This work, carried out in the fourteen sites in the area, is the first reference to the detection of MP distribution at surface waters in the Sea of Marmara, Turkey. As a result of this study, the average level of MP in the surface was determined to be 1.263 item/m2. The results were higher compared of the most other adjacent regions and show that the Sea of Marmara started to face that problem.

Chemical pollution of the marine environment from anthropogenic sources is a global concern due to the potential for long term effects on the ecosystem. Chemical monitoring schemes can detect harmful substances in water, sediment or biota. However, the presence of specific determinants gives no information on how individual species or the ecosystem are impacted. Biological effects techniques are therefore used in environmental monitoring schemes to provide a clearer picture of whether the chemicals present are causing deleterious effects on the species sampled, or whether organisms have been exposed to certain classes of organic contaminants that they may be able to metabolise. Using these techniques, we can provide an assessment of the health of our marine environment (Thain et al., 2008).

Spatial distribution of potentially toxic metals (PTMs) and their accumulation in mangrove Avicennia officinalis L. were studied along 8 locations in and around Sundarban mangrove wetland, India. Among 8 locations, S3 (Chemaguri) and S5 (Ghushighata) showed higher concentration of PTMs (Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn) characterized by higher enrichment factors (3.45–10.03), geo-accumulation indices (0.04–1.22), contamination factors (1.14–3.51) and pollution load indices (1.3–1.45) indicating progressive deterioration of estuarine quality and considerable ecotoxicological risk. Metal concentration in A. officinalis leaves showed significant correlation with sediment metals implying elevated level of bioaccumulation. Significant statistical correlation between photosynthetic pigments (Chlorophyll a, Chlorophyll b), antioxidant response (free radical scavenging and reducing ability) and stress enzymatic activity (Peroxidase, Catalase, Super-oxide dismutase) of A. officinalis with increasing metal concentration in the contaminated locations reflects active detoxification mechanism of the plant. The study indicates the potentiality of biomonitoring metal pollution using studied biochemical markers in mangrove habitats.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This article reviews the literature and presents the current status of the use of socio-acoustic surveys in soundscape studies, through the indication of appropriate question formats, types, and topics for each data collection method (soundwalks, interviews, listening tests, and focus group) for the involved public and acoustic stimuli. RECENT FINDINGS: The ISO 12913-2 establishes ways of data collection and reporting requirements for soundscape studies (International Organization for Standartization 2017), including the triangulation technique. This standard recommends some data collection methods, like soundwalks and interviews. Even so, some authors are using different methods to collect data, such as focus group and listening tests. This study investigated through 52 peer-reviewed papers published on the last 20 years the current status of socio-acoustic studies regarding question topics and types, used stimuli, and characteristics about the participants, using the four major adopted data collection methods in soundscape studies: soundwalks, interviews, listening tests, and focus group. Some topics like “soundscape quality” and “sound sources identification and evaluation” are common in the recent studies, as well as the adoption of some question types such as semantic differential scale, the staple scale, and ranking order scale.

This study is aimed to identify the different sources of sedimentary organic matter (SOM) within Montevideo coastal zone (MCZ). To this end δ13C, δ15N and C/N ratio were analysed in surface sediments and a sediment core. Sediment core analysis showed that until ~1950CE SOM was mainly marine, observing a shift towards lower δ13C in recent sediments, evidencing an estuarine composition. This trend was associated to the climatic variability, which exerted a major influence on the SOM composition, leading to an increased input of terrigenous material and associated anthropogenic contaminants. Surface sediments collected during different El Niño South Oscillation (ENSO) phases did not show inter-annual variability in SOM composition, which was mainly marine in both eastern and western region of MCZ and estuarine in Montevideo Bay. This spatial pattern provides new insights on the dynamics and factors affecting organic matter sources available for primary consumers along the study region.