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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Decoding the Baltic Sea's Past and Present: A simple Molecular Index for Ecosystem Assessment
ClearNew developments in paleo-ecotoxicology: Emerging approaches in applying lake sediment archives to assess impacts from aquatic pollution
This review examines how lake sediment archives (paleolimnology) can be used to reconstruct historical trends in aquatic pollution impacts, including how contaminant exposure has driven shifts in biological communities over decades. It discusses emerging analytical methods including microplastic analysis in dated sediment cores as tools for assessing long-term ecological change.
Advancing River Health Assessments: Integrating Microscopy and Molecular Techniques through Diatom Indices
This review explored how traditional microscopy-based diatom assessments for river water quality can be enhanced by integrating environmental DNA techniques. The study suggests that combining molecular methods with established diatom indices offers faster, more comprehensive evaluations of river ecosystem health, though challenges remain in standardizing these newer approaches.
Environmental DNA in an Ocean of Change: Status, Challenges and Prospects
This review examines the status, challenges, and prospects of environmental DNA (eDNA) research in marine systems, surveying literature on metazoan eDNA studies to assess progress in detecting species distributions, biodiversity, and biomass, and highlighting future opportunities including marine time series, population genetics, natural sampler DNA, and eDNA-based trophic network reconstruction.
Using eRNA/eDNA metabarcoding to detect community-level impacts of nanoplastic exposure to benthic estuarine ecosystems
Researchers used environmental DNA and RNA metabarcoding to detect community-level impacts of nanoplastic exposure on benthic estuarine organisms in marine sediments. The study suggests that molecular methods offer a powerful approach for assessing how nanoplastic contamination affects the diversity and composition of ecologically important microscopic organisms in marine food webs.
Enzymatic digestion method development for long-term stored chitinaceous planktonic samples
Researchers developed an enzymatic digestion method for extracting microplastics from long-term preserved chitinaceous planktonic crustacean samples, comparing material from 1985 and 2020 North Sea collections. The method enables retrospective microplastic analysis in archived time-series biological collections, providing a tool for investigating historical changes in marine microplastic exposure.
The Paleoecology of Microplastic Contamination
This paper reviews how paleoecological methods — using naturally accumulating environmental archives like sediment cores — can be applied to reconstruct the historical timeline of microplastic contamination. Long-term records are needed to establish baselines and understand how rapidly microplastic pollution has escalated over the past century.
The role of museum of biological collections in environmental research: a short note
Museum biological collections — preserved specimens gathered over decades — provide a unique way to track how chemical contaminants like microplastics and heavy metals have changed in ecosystems over time. Comparing historical and modern specimens allows researchers to identify long-term pollution trends that would be impossible to detect through contemporary sampling alone.
A State-of-the-Art Review of Aquatic eDNA Sampling Technologies and Instrumentation: Advancements, Challenges, and Future Prospects
This review surveys the current state of environmental DNA sampling technologies used to monitor aquatic biodiversity, covering methods from simple water filtration to automated in-situ samplers. Researchers found that while eDNA methods offer significant advantages over traditional species surveys, challenges remain in standardizing collection protocols and preventing contamination. The technology has broad implications for monitoring ecosystem health, including tracking how environmental stressors like pollution affect aquatic communities.
Chronological evidence of microplastic accumulation and contamination onset in Central Baltic Sea sediments
Analysis of well-preserved Baltic Sea sediment cores revealed a 50-year chronological record of microplastic accumulation, showing contamination onset in the mid-20th century with accelerating deposition in recent decades.
Microplastics in Baltic bottom sediments: Quantification procedures and first results
Researchers developed modified procedures for quantifying microplastics in Baltic Sea bottom sediments, addressing limitations in the standard NOAA methods — particularly the underestimation of fiber counts. The proposed improvements offer a more reliable approach for monitoring sediment contamination in this heavily polluted regional sea.
Exploitation of environmental DNA (eDNA) for ecotoxicological research: A critical review on eDNA metabarcoding in assessing marine pollution
This review examines how environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis -- a method that detects organisms through DNA traces left in water -- can be used to monitor the effects of marine pollution, including plastic waste. While eDNA does not detect plastics directly, it reveals how pollution changes the biodiversity of marine communities, serving as an early warning system. The approach could help scientists better track the ecological damage caused by microplastic contamination in oceans.
Forensics Meets Ecology – Environmental DNA Offers New Capabilities for Marine Ecosystem and Fisheries Research
This review describes how environmental DNA (eDNA) tools are expanding capabilities for marine ecosystem monitoring and fisheries research, enabling non-invasive detection of species presence, biodiversity assessment, and tracking of human impacts across large ocean areas.
Microplastics as persistent and vectors of other threats in the marine environment: Toxicological impacts, management and strategical roadmap to end plastic pollution
Researchers analyzed how microplastics spread through marine environments, acting as rafts for toxic chemicals and dangerous biofilms that infiltrate the food chain — a problem worsened by COVID-19's surge in single-use plastic waste. The review highlights emerging environmental DNA tools as a way to better track and manage marine microplastic contamination.
Functional responses of key marine bacteria to environmental change – toward genetic counselling for coastal waters
This review examined the functional responses of key marine bacteria to environmental stressors including nutrient pollution and chemical contamination in coastal ecosystems, arguing that bacteria are overlooked both as indicators and mediators of ecosystem health. The authors call for incorporating bacterial functional metrics into marine ecosystem monitoring and management frameworks.
Environmental RNA as a Tool for Marine Community Biodiversity Assessments
This study compared environmental RNA (eRNA) and environmental DNA (eDNA) for assessing marine community biodiversity using metabarcoding, finding that eRNA captured only living organisms while eDNA also detected past occupants. Environmental RNA provided a more current snapshot of community composition and may improve ecological assessments where legacy DNA is a confounding factor.
Tracking the microplastic accumulation from past to present in the freshwater ecosystems: A case study in Susurluk Basin, Turkey
Researchers tracked the historical accumulation of microplastics in freshwater lake sediment cores, finding a steady increase in particle deposition corresponding to rising plastic production since the mid-20th century and demonstrating that sediment archives can reconstruct the timeline of freshwater microplastic pollution.
Temporal distribution of microplastics and other anthropogenic particles in four marine species from the Atlantic coast (France)
Researchers examined how microplastic and other anthropogenic particle abundances in lake sediments have changed over time using sediment cores, linking increases to historical industrialization and urbanization. The temporal record provides context for understanding how plastic pollution has accelerated in recent decades.
Technological Advancements in Field Investigations of Marine Microorganisms: From Sampling Strategies to Molecular Analyses
This is not a microplastics study; it reviews advances in field sampling and molecular analysis methods for studying marine microorganisms, covering omics technologies and in-situ sampling strategies for understanding ocean biogeochemical processes.
Can natural history collection specimens be used as aquatic microplastic pollution bioindicators?
Researchers explored whether preserved animal specimens from natural history museum collections could serve as historical records of microplastic pollution over time. By reviewing how such collections have been used to track other pollutants, they identified key challenges — including inconsistent sampling and specimen degradation — and proposed guidelines for using museum archives to reconstruct how microplastic contamination has changed over decades.
30 years trends of microplastic pollution: Mass-quantitative analysis of archived mussel samples from the North and Baltic Seas
Researchers analyzed archived blue mussel samples from the North and Baltic Seas spanning nearly 30 years and found that microplastic levels measured by pyrolysis GC-MS were at ppm concentrations, providing one of the first long-term trend datasets for microplastic pollution in marine bivalves.
A Synthesis of Marine Monitoring Methods With the Potential to Enhance the Status Assessment of the Baltic Sea
This review synthesized monitoring methods applicable to the Baltic Sea to improve assessment of ecosystem health, covering chemical, biological, and emerging pollutant indicators including microplastics. Better and more coordinated monitoring is essential for tracking the effectiveness of conservation measures across this heavily polluted regional sea.
Metabarcoding reveals different zooplankton communities in northern and southern areas of the North Sea
Using DNA-based metabarcoding, this study identified distinct zooplankton communities in northern versus southern areas of the North Sea, demonstrating molecular tools can efficiently capture biodiversity patterns that traditional morphology-based methods miss. Robust zooplankton monitoring is important for tracking marine ecosystem health.
Diving into the deep: unveiling small microplastics in Norwegian coastal sediment cores
Researchers examined the vertical distribution of small microplastics in five sediment cores from the Norwegian Coastal Current, using advanced analytical methods down to 11 micrometers combined with radiometric dating, finding widespread microplastic presence across sediment layers up to 19 cm depth and providing insights into historical deposition rates.
Combining multi-marker metabarcoding and digital holography to describe eukaryotic plankton across the Newfoundland Shelf
Researchers combined multi-marker metabarcoding and digital holography to characterize eukaryotic plankton diversity across the Newfoundland Shelf, demonstrating how integrating genomic and imaging tools improves high-frequency marine biodiversity monitoring.