An environmental engineering approach to wastewater treatment with bivalves in the coastal zone

High tolerance to pollution and filtration capacity of some seston-eating bivalves and mussels of g. Mytilus first of all, principally determine mussel populations as a powerful natural biofilter. Both marine and freshwater mussels consume relatively large amounts of seston, feeding directly on the primary producers. Particles with contaminants extracted from ambient water during the filtration are accumulated in mussel pseudofaeces and faeces discharged after digestion. These specific particles of faeces and soft pseudofeaces become very suitable substrata for bacteria development with following contaminant destruction. Moreover, such biodeposits appeared to be the nutritious food for bottom detritophages, in particular of polychaetes and amphipods. Some fluid metabolites excreted by mussels, i.e. dissolved organic matter (DOM) have a pronounced biological activity to producers. In general, mussels possess high resistance to acute and chronic pollution stress, although their growth may slow down and even stops. In clean conditions food supply is the most important factor in determining activity and growth rate of mussels for northern environment. Mussel and some other aquaculture, as a relatively new application of environmental engineering is able to improve the recycling of nutrients from wastewater to bioproduction and greatly reduce the risk of environmental degradation in the coastal zone.

Rotifers in Lake Orta: a potential ecological and evolutionary model system

<p>Lake Orta experienced for a few decades a unique history of chronic pollution, with extreme changes in pH and copper concentration. Currently, the lake has recovered to its almost pristine oligotrophic conditions, but its sediments still preserve the record of all the changes that happened since the establishment of the first polluting factories in the 1920s, through to the liming activities in 1989-1990, and to the recovery phase that is still going on. Here we review the current knowledge for Lake Orta regarding rotifers, a diverse component of the zooplankton of the lake, through studies on living organisms and on their resting stages accumulated in the sediments. We also report a brief review of what is known in general on the effects of changes in pH and copper concentration on rotifers at the population, species and community level, providing expectations for such effects on the rotifers of Lake Orta. Then, we conclude our review with a perspective on the potential use of rotifers hatched from the resting stages in the sediment of Lake Orta with the description of experiments that can be performed in the future in the framework of resurrection ecology, in order to understand the mechanisms of past and future changes in the environment.</p>

Environmental Assessment of Soil Along Highways (Novosibirsk)

These studies were performed for the first time at the territory of Novosibirsk. Some of the methods have not been previously used in environmental assessment along the major highways. The approbation of these methods can make a certain contribution to the theory of bioindication and biological testing (including the data on the environmental identity of individual species of plants and soil photoautotrophs). Using biological methods has allowed to evaluate the effects of living systems’ exposure to chronic pollution by vehicles’ emissions, which is impossible to achieve with traditionally used physicochemical methods that determine the concentration of certain pollutants only at a given time in a given sample. in the soils of Novosibirsk were found: 63 species of soil algae and cyanobacteria belonging to 42 geniuses, 38 families, 19 orders of 7 classes, 4 groups. Changes of taxonomic and phytocenological organization algocyanobacterial groups can serve as indicators of the environmental conditions, in particular, they can diagnose the degree of stress. The article demonstrates the possibility of applying biological methods to estimate the ecological state of technospheric territories.