scholarly journals Influence of monoterpenoids on the growth of freshwater cyanobacteria

Author(s):  
Lucyna Balcerzak ◽  
Stanisław Lochyński ◽  
Jacek Lipok

Abstract Cyanobacteria are characterized by a very high tolerance to environmental factors. They are found in salt water, fresh water, thermal springs, and Antarctic waters. The wide spectrum of habitats suitable for those microorganisms is related to their particularly effective metabolism; resistance to extreme environmental conditions; and the need for only limited environmental resources such as water, carbon dioxide, simple inorganic salts, and light. These metabolic characteristics have led to cyanobacterial blooms and the production of cyanotoxins, justifying research into effective ways to counteract the excessive proliferation of these microorganisms. A new and interesting idea for the immediate reduction of cyanobacterial abundance is to use natural substances with broad-spectrum biological activity to restore phytoplankton diversity. This study describes the effects of selected monoterpenoid derivatives on the development of cyanobacterial cultures. In the course of the study, some compounds ((±)-citronellal, (+)-α-pinene) showed the ability to inhibit the colonization of the tested photosynthetic bacteria, while others (eugenol, eucalyptol) stimulated the growth of these microorganisms. By analyzing the results of these experiments, information was obtained on the mutual relations of cyanobacteria and the tested monoterpenes, which are present in the aquatic environment. Key points • Monoterpenoids significantly inhibit the growth of single cyanobacterial strains. • Monoterpenoids can inhibit the growth of cyanobacterial consortia. • Natural substances can control the growth of freshwater cyanobacteria.

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Mark Whiteside ◽  
J. Marvin Herndon

Red tide is the term used in Florida (USA) and elsewhere to describe a type of marine harmful algal bloom (HAB) that grows out of control and produces neurotoxins that adversely affect humans, birds, fish, shellfish, and marine mammals. HABs are becoming more abundant, extensive, and closer to shore, and longer in duration than any time in recorded history. Our objective is to review the effects the multifold components of aerosolized coal fly ash as they relate to the increasing occurrences of HABs. Aerosolized coal fly ash (CFA) pollutants from non-sequestered coal-fired power plant emissions and from undisclosed, although “hidden in plain sight,” tropospheric particulate geoengineering operations are inflicting irreparable damage to the world’s surface water-bodies and causing great harm to human health (including lung cancer, respiratory and neurodegenerative diseases) and environmental health (including major die-offs of insects, birds and trees). Florida’s ever-growing toxic nightmare of red tides and blue-green algae is a microcosm of similar activity globally. Atmospheric deposition of aerosol particulates, most importantly bioavailable iron, has drastically shifted the global plankton community balance in the direction of harmful algae and cyanobacterial blooms in fresh and salt water. Proposed geoengineering schemes of iron fertilization of the ocean would only make a bad situation unimaginably worse. Based on the evidence presented here, the global spread of harmful algae blooms will only be contained by rapidly reducing particulate air pollution both by implementation of universal industrial particulate-trapping and by the immediate halting of jet-sprayed particulate aerosols. Corrective actions depend not only on international cooperation, but on ending the deadly code of silence throughout government, academe, and media on the subject of ongoing tropospheric aerosol geoengineering. Long-standing weather control, climate intervention, and geoengineering operations have come to threaten not only all humans but the entire web of life on Earth.


Author(s):  
Michał Adamski ◽  
Ewelina Chrapusta ◽  
Beata Bober ◽  
Ariel Kamiński ◽  
Jan Białczyk

AbstractCylindrospermopsin (CYN) is a cytotoxin produced by several species of cyanobacteria, which occur all over the world. It was demonstrated that CYN has a wide spectrum of biological activity in animal cells, involving hepatotoxicity, genotoxicity, cytotoxicity and carcinogenic potential, and is considered as one of the factors that caused human poisoning in Palm Island (Australia) and in Caruaru (Brazil). This compound may be introduced into organism by several ways, including consumption of water, fishes and seafood as well as accidental swallowing or aerosol spray inhalation during recreational using of reservoirs covered by cyanobacterial blooms. The information about the CYN impact on environment and its degradation processes under natural conditions is scant. Taking this into consideration CYN should be regarded as a potential threat to human health and life. This review presents physicochemical characteristic and biological activity of CYN, occurrence in freshwaters and its sensitivity to the influence of some environmental factors.


Author(s):  
Stephanus Mentz ◽  
Mehdi Mehrabi ◽  
Mohsen Sharifpur ◽  
Josua P. Meyer

Desalination systems based on the Humidification Dehumidification (HDH) process come in a large variety of forms. They all operate in very similar manners, all requiring the evaporation of salt water and the condensation of pure, distilled water, in the same way clouds are formed every day. As engineers we must pursue the processes that have the best possible efficiency for the specific situation we find ourselves in. The purpose of this paper is to explore the various Humidification Dehumidification desalination processes and thermodynamically compare them with one another in order to determine which one of these processes has the most potential in specific environmental situations. This paper explores the advantages and disadvantages of all HDH processes as well as compare them with more common desalination methods like reverse osmosis. An in depth study of available literature is conducted, listed and explained regarding these HDH processes and their specific characteristics, focusing on the key points of efficiency, limiting factors and environmental effects. In some cases these processes, especially those utilizing the open air cycle or solar collectors, can be severely affected by environmental situations. The environmental situations can include high humidity environments, high temperature environments, high rainfall environments and of course the polar opposites of these situations and any combination of them. The paper takes into account these environmental effects and makes recommendations based on different environmental situations that can be found around the world. The HDH processes can obtain the energy they need to operate from various sources. Recommendations are also made with this in mind. Recommendations are also made regarding possible processes and specific design areas, which, in the in the writers opinion, should be the focus of improvements made by future designers are noted. Considering the efficiency limiting areas that cause bottlenecks in the processes, the writer prescribes possible ways to limit the effects of these bottleneck areas. The writer’s own recommendations regarding possible processes and possible improvements are also stated, paying attention to the recommendations already found in literature.


2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1783-1812 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Zillén ◽  
D. J. Conley

Abstract. During the last century (1900s) industrialized forms of agriculture and human activities have caused extensive eutrophication of Baltic Sea waters. As a consequence, the Baltic Sea developed a hypoxic zone that has caused serve ecosystem disturbance. Climate forcing has also been proposed to be responsible for the reported trends in hypoxia (<2 mg/l O2) both during the last c. 100 years and during the Medieval Period. By contrast, investigations on the degree of anthropogenic forcing on the ecosystem on long time-scales (millennial) have not been thoroughly addressed. This paper critically examines evidence for anthropogenic disturbance of the marine environment beyond the last century through the analysis of the population growth, technological development and land-use changes in the drainage area. Natural environmental changes, i.e. changes in the morphology and depths of the Baltic basin and the sills, were probably the main driver for large-scale hypoxia during the early Holocene (8000–4000 cal. yr BP). We show that hypoxia during the last two millennia has followed the general expansion and contraction trends in Europe and that human perturbations have been an important driver for hypoxia during that time. Hypoxia occurring during the Medieval Period coincides with a doubling of the population (from c. 4.6 to 9.5 million), a massive reclamation of land in both established and marginal cultivated areas and significant increases in soil nutrient release. The role of climate forcing on hypoxia in the Baltic Sea has yet to be convincingly demonstrated, although it could have contributed to sustain hypoxia through enhanced salt water inflows or through changes in hydrological inputs. In addition, cyanobacteria blooms are not natural features of the Baltic Sea as previously hypothesized, but are a consequence of enhanced phosphorus release that occurs together with hypoxia.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evgeny V. Esin ◽  
Grigorii N. Markevich ◽  
Dmitriy V. Zlenko ◽  
Fedor N. Shkil

El’gygytgyn, the only “ancient lake” in the Arctic (3.6 MY), is a deep (176 m) and extremely cold (always ≤ 4°C) waterbody inhabited by unique salmonids, which colonized the ecosystem stepwise during the global fluctuations of the Quaternary climate. The descendant of the first-wave-invaders (long-finned charr) dwells in the deep waters and feeds on amphipods. The second-wave-invaders (smallmouth charr) consume copepods in the mid-waters. Recent third-wave-invaders (Boganida charr) are spread throughout the ecosystem and feed on insects when they are young shifting to piscivory at an older age. Here, we present the data on the charrs’ thyroid status and metabolic characteristics, confirming their ecological specialization. The long-finned charr exhibits an extremely low thyroid content, the substitution of carbohydrates for lipids in the cellular respiration, an increased hemoglobin level and a high antioxidant blood capacity. These traits are likely to be the legacy of anaerobic survival under perennial ice cover during several Quaternary glaciations. Moderate thyroid status and reduced metabolic rate of the smallmouth charr, along with an inactive lifestyle, could be regarded as a specialization to saving energy under the low food supply in the water column. The piscivorous Boganida charr could be sub-divided into shallow-water and deep-water groups. The former demonstrates a significantly elevated thyroid status and increased metabolism. The latter is characterized by a reduced thyroid level, metabolic rate, and lipid accumulation. Thus, the endemic El’gygytgyn charrs represent a wide spectrum of contrast physiological adaptation patterns essential to survive in sympatry under extremely cold conditions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Erkin Khozhiakbarovich Botirov ◽  
Viktoriya Mikhaylovna Bonacheva ◽  
Natalya Eduardovna Kolomiets

The review summarizes the scientific literature on the degree of knowledge of the chemical composition and biological activity of metabolites and plant extracts of the genus Equisetum L. of the world flora. Many types of horsetail are widely used in folk medicine as a diuretic, hemostatic, as well as for pulmonary tuberculosis and skin diseases, ulcers, dropsy, jaundice, as a heart remedy, for diseases of the kidneys, bladder, etc. Based on extracts of the horsetail canes (Equisetum arvense L.) a number of drugs and biologically active additives with a wide spectrum of pharmacological action have been created. The review presents data on the structural diversity and biological activity of metabolites of plants of the genus Equisetum L. Information is provided on the composition of the metabolites of 16 species of the genus Equisetum L., the structure and sources of more than 200 natural substances related to terpenoids, phytosterols, brassinosteroids, vitamins, alkaloids and other nitrogen-containing compounds , lignans, styryl pyrones, indanones, phenylpropanoids, organic acids, hydrocarbons, aldehydes and phenolic compounds. The main biologically active substances of plants of the genus Equisetum are flavonoids and other plant phenolic compounds. Extracts and individual compounds possess antioxidant, diuretic, antibacterial, antifungal, hepatoprotective, hypoglycemic, antimutagenic, sedative, anxiolytic, anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory properties. An analysis of literature data shows that plants of the genus Equisetum are promising for the creation of new effective drugs. The information presented in the review can be used as reference literature by phytochemists, biologists, and pharmacologists, as well as to solve the problems of chemosystematics of plants of the genus Equisetum L.


Author(s):  
Laura S. DeThorne ◽  
Kelly Searsmith

Purpose The purpose of this article is to address some common concerns associated with the neurodiversity paradigm and to offer related implications for service provision to school-age autistic students. In particular, we highlight the need to (a) view first-person autistic perspectives as an integral component of evidence-based practice, (b) use the individualized education plan as a means to actively address environmental contributions to communicative competence, and (c) center intervention around respect for autistic sociality and self-expression. We support these points with cross-disciplinary scholarship and writings from autistic individuals. Conclusions We recognize that school-based speech-language pathologists are bound by institutional constraints, such as eligibility determination and Individualized Education Program processes that are not inherently consistent with the neurodiversity paradigm. Consequently, we offer examples for implementing the neurodiversity paradigm while working within these existing structures. In sum, this article addresses key points of tension related to the neurodiversity paradigm in a way that we hope will directly translate into improved service provision for autistic students. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13345727


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 178
Author(s):  
Shwetha Mallesara Sudhakar ◽  
Shahla Nadereftekhari

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