The impact of pesticides on macrobenthos communities was studied on two aquatic environments in Northern Italy; River Meolo, a site exposed to agricultural pollution, and River Upper Livenza a low pollution reference site. Colonisation of artificial substrates was compared throughout the productive season. The relevance of multiple environmental stressors other than pesticides (e.g. oxygen depl...

Biological tests are necessary for studying the toxicity and biochemical effects of pesticides to individual species in the animal and plant kingdoms as well as for indirect determination of biologically important physical and chemical properties of pesticides. Some of the more important requisites for meaningful application of biological tests are careful method standardization; use of sensiti...

Biochemical changes, specifically in hemocyanin and glucose concentrations in hemolymph, glycogen in the digestive gland, were studied throughout the molt cycle in juveniles of Litopenaeus vannamei in a high salinity condition (36), and related to variations in the osmotic capacity of organisms. Increasing hemolymph volume before molting modifies circulating glucose and hemocyanin concentration...

Objective(s): Copper (Cu) is an essential dietary supplement in animal feeds, which plays an important role in maintaining the balance of all living organisms. Copper nanoparticles (nCu) participate in catalysing activities of multiple antioxidant/defensive enzymes and exerts pro-inflammatory and pro-apoptotic effects on systemic organs and tissues. The present study e...

Examination of amino acids in particulate samples from a variety of marine environments (fresh phytoplankton to deep-sea sediments) revealed systematic compositional changes upon progressive degradation. These consistent trends have been used to derive a quantitative degradation index (DI) that is directly related to the reactivity of the organic material, as indicated by its lability to enzyma...