Editorial: Effect of root anatomy and apoplastic barrier development on cadmium uptake in rice

<正>Cadmium (Cd) is a toxic metal with high mobility from soil and known translocation into plants (Song et al., 2015).Because the main source of human exposure to Cd is from food consumption, there has been increased research examining Cd uptake in agricultural plants (Li et al., 2014; Rizwan et al., 2016; Song et al., 2015). Rice (Oryza sativa L.) has been identified as a major crop that contains relatively high     

Cytotoxicity,redox and immune status in African catfish,Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) exposed to bisphenol A (BPA) and its analogues

The objective of the study was to determine the comparative toxicities and immune dysfunction in the African catfish, Clarias gariepinus, exposed to bisphenol A (BPA) and its two analogues: bisphenol AP (BPAP) and bisphenol P (BPP). Juveniles of C. gariepinus were exposed to sublethal concentrations (70 and 140 μg/L) of BPA, BPAP and BPP for 7, 14 or 21 days after which various endpoints which are indicative of cytotoxicity, oxidative stress and haematological and innate immune parameters were determined in the liver homogenates or blood plasma. The exposure of C. gariepinus to BPA and its analogues caused significant increased activities of lactate dehydrogenase, catalase and superoxide dismutase. The exposed fish had increased levels of DNA fragmentation, lipid peroxidation, white blood cells, nitric oxide and respiratory burst, while the red blood cell counts and the percentage packed cell volume decreased significantly in the exposed fish compared to control. The toxic effects elicited by the bisphenols were both concentration- and duration-dependent. Generally, BPA exerted the most toxic effects on the fish, followed by BPAP, while BPP exerted the least toxic effects to C. gariepinus. Summarily, the findings indicated that BPA and its two analogues studied in the research are capable of causing cytotoxicity, oxidative stress and immune dysfunction in C. gariepinus.

     

Systems vs. metasystems: EMIS at the crossroads

As environmental management responsibilities expand beyond regulations to address business issues such as design for the environment, total cost accounting, and strategic planning, it is tempting to plan for expanded information systems (EMIS) to handle new responsibilities. The author argues that we should pursue exactly the opposite course: shrink the EMIS to the minimum size possible. It would be impossible to feed the self-standing EMIS with all the data it needs—replicas of almost any data tracked by the organization. The EMS and EMIS should be “meta-systems” that store the organization's knowledge about how EH&S relates to various business processes, and what should be measured and reported to assure that EH&S objectives are met. The author provides examples of how companies are creating these EMS “metasystems” by leveraging enterprise systems implemented for accounting, business planning, groupware, maintenance, and process control.     

Understanding the sources and effects of abandoned,lost, and discarded fishing gear on marine turtles in northern Australia

Globally, 6.4 million tons of fishing gear are lost in the oceans annually. This gear (i.e., ghost nets), whether accidently lost, abandoned, or deliberately discarded, threatens marine wildlife as it drifts with prevailing currents and continues to entangle marine organisms indiscriminately. Northern Australia has some of the highest densities of ghost nets in the world, with up to 3 tons washing ashore per kilometer of shoreline annually. This region supports globally significant populations of internationally threatened marine fauna, including 6 of the 7 extant marine turtles. We examined the threat ghost nets pose to marine turtles and assessed whether nets associated with particular fisheries are linked with turtle entanglement by analyzing the capture rates of turtles and potential source fisheries from nearly 9000 nets found on Australia's northern coast. Nets with relatively larger mesh and smaller twine sizes (e.g., pelagic drift nets) had the highest probability of entanglement for marine turtles. Net size was important; larger nets appeared to attract turtles, which further increased their catch rates. Our results point to issues with trawl and drift‐net fisheries, the former due to the large number of nets and fragments found and the latter due to the very high catch rates resulting from the net design. Catch rates for fine‐mesh gill nets can reach as high as 4 turtles/100 m of net length. We estimated that the total number of turtles caught by the 8690 ghost nets we sampled was between 4866 and 14,600, assuming nets drift for 1 year. Ghost nets continue to accumulate on Australia's northern shore due to both legal and illegal fishing; over 13,000 nets have been removed since 2005. This is an important and ongoing transboundary threat to biodiversity in the region that requires attention from the countries surrounding the Arafura and Timor Seas. Entender las Fuentes y Efectos de Equipo de Pesca Abandonado, Perdido y Desechado sobre las Tortugas Marinas del Atlántico Norte     

An update of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on systemic insecticides. Part 2: impacts on organisms and ecosystems

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - New information on the lethal and sublethal effects of neonicotinoids and fipronil on organisms is presented in this review, complementing the...     

Ecotoxicity of oil sludges and residuals from their washing with surfactants: soil dehydrogenase and ryegrass germination tests

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Oil sludge washing (OSW) with surfactants and co-solvents is used to recover the oil, and this process leaves some residuals (sediments and surfactant...     

Keep swimming but stop peeing in the pools

正Swimming is excellent exercise and offers many health benefits.However,the"chlorine smell"in swimming pools may be a turn-off for some people.Although this smell is often thought to be of chlorine,it actually comes from volatile compounds that are produced from unintended reactions between disinfectants(e.g.,chlorine)and organic matter in     

Promoting the use of BaP as a marker for PAH exposure in UK soils

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous environmental pollutants that frequently accumulate in soils. There is therefore a requirement to determine their levels in contaminated environments for the purposes of determining impacts on human health. PAHs are a suite of individual chemicals, and there is an ongoing debate as to the most appropriate method for assessing the risk to humans from them. Two methods predominate: the surrogate marker approach and the toxic equivalency factor. The former assumes that all chemicals in a mixture have an equivalent toxicity. The toxic equivalency approach estimates the potency of individual chemicals relative to the usually most toxic Benzo(a)pyrene. The surrogate marker approach is believed to overestimate risk and the toxic equivalency factor to underestimate risk. When analysing the risks from soils, the surrogate marker approach is preferred due to its simplicity, but there are concerns because of the potential diversity of the PAH profile across the range of impacted soils. Using two independent data sets containing soils from 274 sites across a diverse range of locations, statistical analysis was undertaken to determine the differences in the composition of carcinogenic PAH between site locations, for example, rural versus industrial. Following principal components analysis, distinct population differences were not seen between site locations in spite of large differences in the total PAH burden between individual sites. Using all data, highly significant correlations were seen between BaP and other carcinogenic PAH with the majority of r ² values > 0.8. Correlations with the European Food Standards Agency (EFSA) summed groups, that is, EFSA2, EFSA4 and EFSA8 had even higher correlations (r ² > 0.95). We therefore conclude that BaP is a suitable surrogate marker to represent mixtures of PAH in soil during risk assessments.