Assessing the impacts of seawater acidification and emerging contaminants on different life stages of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus

• Main Author: Marceta, Tihana
• Other Authors: Szabò, Ildikò
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Università degli studi di Padova 2018
• Subjects: Sea urchin; seawater acidification; pharmaceuticals; larvae; sperm; Settore BIO/07 - Ecologia; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11577/3422674

Ocean acidification, originated by rising atmospheric CO2 levels, represents one of the most important future threats in marine coastal areas. Several studies have provided data about the effects of low pH on single life stages in marine invertebrate species. Presently, there is an increasing effort to produce knowledge about responses from the entire life cycle of the organisms and across generations as well. This approach has the advantage of highlighting potential phenotypic plasticity and producing more realistic data at population level. Taking this into consideration, adult sea urchins Paracentrotus lividus were acclimated under reduced pH during gametogenesis. Physiological and biochemical parameters were evaluated in males and females separately and transgenerational effects were investigated analyzing offspring performances under different pH values. Among future threats for coastal marine areas, the presence of pharmaceutical compounds is of great concern. The most used pharmaceuticals are commonly detected in the aquatic environment. These compounds are biologically active molecules which may interact also with non target organisms and their presence in marine coastal environment is expected to increase. Considering that in the wild, organisms are exposed to mixtures of various chemicals, for long time, it is important to investigate chronic effects of mixtures of these compounds at environmentally relevant concentrations. In order to focalize on more realistic chemical risk assessment methods which consider combined effects of the most common stressors in future marine environment, combined effects of low pH and the mixture of four pharmaceuticals (clofibric acid, caffeine, diclofenac, and propranolol) at environmentally relevant concentration s were investigated in P. lividus larvae, through short-term and long-term experiments. Furthermore, different pH values could increase or decrease bioavailability of pharmaceuticals when dissolved in aqueous medium, depending on chemical characteristics of the ...