The Monitoring and Assessment of Aquatic Toxicology

Chemicals, including inorganic chemicals (nanoparticles, heavy metals, and other chemicals) and organic chemicals (pesticides, POPS, PBDEs, and other organic chemicals), are widely used in the world in recent 30 years to support the rapid development of industrialization and agriculture. The extensive use and discharge of these chemicals in these processes will produce wastewater containing a variety of contaminants, and the aquatic environment pollution will induce aquatic toxicology and may impair biological communities. However, due to the lack of target specificity, these chemicals can cause severe and persistent toxic effects on nontarget aquatic species, including bacteria, invertebrates, and vertebrates. Nowadays, knowledge and understanding of these conditions have led to the development of new monitoring , analysis, and assessment technologies based on biological and chemical methods. Therefore, it is very important to introduce these new methods to readers, which may include the characteristics of water pollutions, sampling techniques, chemical analysis methods, transport and transformation of chemicals, monitoring and assessment of aquatic toxicology, and the use of wastewater and other quality water. The articles contained in this issue include both reviews and basic scientific studies focused on new monitoring technologies, mathematical analysis methods, and aquatic environment assessment of the aquatic toxicology. Due to the widespread usage as flame retardants and the persistence of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs), they have become ubiquitous in the environment. In the " Environmental Characteristics of PBDEs in Marine System with Emphasis on Marine Organisms and Sediments " by Y. Zhang et al., authors provided an overview of the widespread of PBDEs in global scale and analyzed the concentrations of different PBDEs using different methods, for example, meta-analysis and principal component analysis. Nanoparticles can affect the organisms in different environment. Relatively low concentrations of Silver nanoparticle (AgNP, 5 nm) will impact basic physiological functions. In the work by I. Saggese et al. entitled " Silver Nanoparticles Affect Functional Bioenergetic Traits in the Invasive Red Sea mussel Brachidontes pharaonis, " the authors showed that AgNP significantly affected the average respiration rate of B. pharaonis, and heart beat rates largely increased with no acclimation in B. pharaonis in both 20 í µí¼‡g L −1 and 40 í µí¼‡g L −1 AgNP. Eventually, a decreasing trend for absorption efficiency might indicate energetic constrains. Differing from the land ecosystem and marine ecosystem in the structure and function, the mangrove wetland plays an extremely important role in the global ecological balance. As trace metals …