Introduction: Reverse osmosis (RO) is best known for its use in desalination (removing the salt from seawater to get fresh water), but since the early 1970s it has also been used to purify fresh water for medical, industrial, and domestic applications. The aim of this research was the performance study of reverse osmosis plants for water desalination in Bandar-Lengeh, Iran. Materials and Meth...

Diatoms, unicellular phytoplankton that account for ∼40% of marine primary productivity, often dominate coastal and open-ocean upwelling zones. Limitation of growth and productivity by iron at low light is attributed to an elevated cellular Fe requirement for the synthesis of Fe-rich photosynthetic proteins. In the dynamic coastal environment, Fe concentrations and daily surface irradiance leve...

Seagras es, grass-I ike floweri ng plants in marine environments (Fig. I), inhabit intertidal and comparat ively hallow subtidal regions of e tuaries and the nearshore coastal zone, and support rather characteri tic animal assemblages regardles of the particular geographic location or species composition. There are few parts of the world's coastal zone whe re one or more of the 48 species of se...

lation rates of coastal ecosystems, such as those of mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes, as a means of sequestering (blue) carbon for climate mitigation purposes. Material from dead plants and animals in salt marshes accumulates over time in low-oxygen conditions, limiting the CO2 emissions from the normal process of aerobic decomposition (McLeod et al. 2011; Chmura et al. 2003; Duarte et ...

Marine-derived nutrients can increase primary productivity and change species composition of terrestrial plant communities in coastal and riverine ecosystems. We hypothesized that sea nutrient subsidies have a positive effect on nitrogen assimilation and seedling survival of non-nitrogen fixing species, increasing the relative abundance of non-nitrogen fixing species close to seashore. Moreover...

Distribution and behavior of many trace elements in the aquatic environment has been well characterized, but little is known about silver (Ag) concentrations in coastal waters, even though this element ranks among the most toxic to marine invertebrates (Calabrese et al., 1977 ; Fisher and Hook, 1997 ; Webb and Wood, 1998). Studies conducted by Flegal et al. (1995), River-Duarte et al. (1999), a...

Insight into the speed and predictability of local adaptation can be gained by studying organisms, such as invasive species, that have recently expanded their geographical ranges. Common garden studies were designed to address these issues with the California poppy, Eschscholzia californica, collected from a wide range of environments in both its native (California) and invasive (Chile) ranges....

The effects of nutrient load reductions on the biomass of N-fixing cyanobacteria were evaluated in the scale of the Gulf of Finland. The two analysed reduction scenarios were Finnish national agenda and the improvement of phosphorus removal in the present purification plants of St. Petersburg. The effects of load reduction scenarios were tested by using a 3D-ecosystem model with a horizontal re...