Microplastics in Marine Environment: Occurrence, Distribution, and Extraction Methods in Marine Organisms

The pervasive presence of microplastics in marine environments has raised significant concerns. This review addresses the pressing issue of microplastic pollution in marine ecosystems and its potential implications for both the environment and human health. It outlines the current state of microplastic occurrence, distribution, and extraction methods within marine organisms. Microplastics have emerged as a significant environmental concern due to their harmful effects on ecosystems and their potential human health risks. These particles infiltrate marine environments through runoff and atmospheric deposition, ultimately contaminating beaches and posing threats to marine life. Despite the gravity of this issue, there has been limited research on the presence and distribution of microplastics in marine organisms. This review aims to bridge this knowledge gap by comprehensively examining the occurrence, distribution, and various extraction methods used to detect microplastics in marine organisms. It emphasizes the urgent need for targeted measures to manage microplastic pollution, highlights the significant role of human activities in contributing to this problem, and underscores the importance of reducing human-induced pollution to safeguard marine ecosystems. While this paper contributes to the understanding of microplastic pollution in marine environments and underscores the critical importance of taking action to protect marine organisms and preserve our oceans for future generations, it also emphasizes that, in effectively tackling the microplastic problem, a well-coordinated approach is essential, involving research initiatives, policy adjustments, public involvement, and innovative technologies. Crucially, prompt and resolute responses must exist to counteract the escalating peril posed by microplastics to the oceans and the global environment.

Distribution and geochemical significance of alkylbenzenes for crude oil with different depositional environments and thermal maturities

A total of 45 alkylbenzenes were detected and identified in crude oils with different depositional environments and thermal maturities from the Tarim Basin,Beibuwan Basin,and Songliao Basin using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry(GC×GCTOFMS).By analyzing the distribution characteristics of C0-C5alkylbenzenes,it is found that the content of some alkylbenzenes varies greatly in crude oils.Based on the distribution characteristics of 1,2,4,5-tetramethylbenzene(Te MB)and 1,2,3,4-Te MB,the ratio of 1,2,4,5-Te MB to 1,2,3,4-Te MB is proposed to indicate the organic matter origin and depositional environment of ancient sediments.Oil samples originated mainly from lower hydrobiont,algae,bacteria and source rocks deposited under reducing/anoxic conditions have low 1,2,4,5-/1,2,3,4-Te MB values(less than 0.6),while oil samples originated mainly from terrestrial higher plants and source rocks deposited under oxic/sub-oxic conditions have higher 1,2,4,5-/1,2,3,4-Te MB values(greater than 1.0).The significant difference of 1,2,4,5-/1,2,3,4-Te MB values is controlled by 1,2,4,5-Te MB content.1,2,4,5-Te MB content in oils derived from source rocks deposited in oxidized sedimentary environment(greater than 1.0 mg/g whole oil)is higher than that in oils from source rocks deposited in reduced sedimentary environment(less than 1.0 mg/g whole oil).1,2,4,5-/1,2,3,4-Te MB ratio might not or slightly be affected by evaporative fractionation,biodegradation and thermal maturity.1,2,4,5-/1,2,3,4-Te MB ratio and 1,2,4,5-Te MB content can be used as supplementary parameter for the identification of sedimentary environment and organic matter input.It should be noted that compared to the identification of organic matter sources,the 1,2,4,5-/1,2,3,4-Te MB parameter is more effective in identifying sedimentary environments.

Geochemical Characteristics of the Upper Permian Longtan Formation from Northeastern Sichuan Basin:Implications for the Depositional Environment and Organic Matter Enrichment

A set of organic-rich shales of the upper Permian Longtan Formation,which is widely developed in the northeastern part of the Sichuan Basin,is a key formation for the next step of exploration and development.At present,most studies on this set of formations have focused on the reservoir characteristics and reservoir formation mechanism of the shales,and basic studies on the palaeoenvironment and organic matter(OM)enrichment mechanism have not been fully carried out.In this paper,we recovered the sedimentary palaeoenvironment by mineralogical,elemental geochemical and organic geochemical analyses,and explored the enrichment mechanism of OM under the constraints of palaeoenvironmental evolution.The shales can be divided into two stages of sedimentary evolution:compared with the shales of the Lower Longtan Formation,the shales of the Upper Longtan Formation are relatively rich in quartz,poor in clay and carbonate minerals,and the OM type changes from typeⅢto typeⅡ_(2).The depositional environment has undergone a change from sea level rise,from warm and wet climate to dry and cold climate,and from oxygen-poor condition restricted to open reduction environment;the land source input has decreased,the siliceous mineral content has increased,the biological productivity has improved,and the deposition rate has changed from high to low.A depositional model was established for the shales of the Longtan Formation,reflecting the differential reservoir formation pattern of organic matter.For the Lower Longtan Formation shales,the most important factors controlling OM content are terrestrial source input and deposition rate,followed by paleoclimate and paleooxygen conditions.For the Upper Longtan Formation shales,the most important controlling factor is paleo-productivity,followed by sedimentation rate.The depositional model constructed for the Upper and Lower Longtan Formation shales can reproduce the enrichment of organic matter and provide a basis for later exploration and development.

Environmental Effects on Differential Organic Matter Enrichment of the Lower Cambrian Shale,Tarim Basin,NW China

Early Cambrian shale is an important petroleum source rock around the world.Because of little drilling data and poor seismic data,until recently,organic matter enrichment of the Lower Cambrian Yuertusi and Xishanbulake formations shale is still an enigma in the Tarim Basin,northwestern China.Total organic carbon(TOC),major and trace element data of Cambrian shale samples from five boreholes have been analyzed to decipher the mechanism of the organic matter enrichment.The results show that the shales deposited in the western restricted intraplatform have much higher TOC contents(3.2%-19.8%,on average 11.0%)than those from the eastern basin(2.2%-10.2%,on average 4.5%).The paleoproductivity proxies(Ba,Ba/Al,P/Al)in the western restricted platform are much higher than those in the eastern basin.The trace element indicators such as V/Cr,Ni/Co,Mo-TOC and Mo_(EF)-U_(EF)suggest an anoxic environment across the basin,but a more restricted environment in the western intraplatform.The paleoproductivity rather than anoxic condition and hydrothermal activity are concluded to have resulted in the differentiation of the organic matter enrichment from the western intraplatform to eastern basin in the early Cambrian shales;the restricted environment was favorable for paleoproductivity and preservation of organic matter.

Special Issue on "Response of Polar Organisms and Natural Environment to Global Changes"

High altitude and high latitude regions on Earth are experiencing rapid changes in climate, with impacts on polar organisms and the environment. The persistent cold and sometimes inhospitable conditions create unique ecosystems and habitats for polar organisms.

Inviting Contributions to a Special Issue on "Response of Polar Organisms and Natural Environment to Global Changes"

Dear Colleagues, We would like to invite you to submit manuscripts to a special issue of the journal Advances in Polar Science （APS） on ＂Response of Polar Organisms and Natural Environment to Global Changes＂.

A Study on Rice Growth and Soil Environments in Paddy Fields Using Different Organic and Chemical Fertilizers

Currently, the majority of paddy fields in Japan are grown using chemical fertilizers and synthetic chemical pesticides, since chemical fertilizers can provide the nutrients necessary for plant growth. However, there are concerns regarding the environmental impact of chemical fertilizer and pesticides production, such as reduction of soil microorganisms and water pollution due to the runoff of fertilizer components from the soil caused by excessive fertilizer application. In this study, we investigated the effects of the application of organic and chemical fertilizers on the plant growth of paddy fields, in addition to their effects on the chemical and biological properties of the soil. The panicle numbers of rough and brown rice, the 1000-grain weight of the rough and brown rice, and the percentages of ripened grains were significantly higher in paddy soils grown with organic fertilizers than in those grown with chemical fertilizers. In addition, the total carbon (TC) contents and pH values were significantly higher in the soils of paddy fields grown with organic fertilizers. Furthermore, the soils of paddy fields grown with organic fertilizers exhibited greater bacterial biomasses, N circulation activity, and P circulation activity than the soils of paddy fields grown using chemical fertilizers, although the differences were not significant. In this study, the difference in plant growth was appeared in fertilizer application such as organic and chemical fertilizers. It was indicated that the organic fertilizer and pesticide reduction management increased the soil bacterial biomass and activated the material cycle such as N circulation activity.

Study on the Agile Virtual Enterprise′s Organizing Form and Running Environment

In this paper, we begin with the swift changes in the knowledge economy time,analyze the implication of the agility, and consider the agile virtual enterprise as the mainorganizational form for the manufacturing enterprises to realize agility. We classify the agilevirtual enterprises into products alliance style and knowledge alliance style, and compares theirmain features and profit distribution models. As a result, we give four basic structures for thebuilding and running of the agile virtual enterprises.

The Organizations’Psychological Environment Traits Modification When Adopting an Ethics and Compliance Program

Ethics and compliance programs have a direct linkage to key tenets of employee behaviors.The employee behaviors are building blocks of the organizations’psychological environment traits.They are characterized by role identity,self-awareness,motivation,and misconduct.It is crucial to unravel the diversity of the perspectives of the programs to design an appropriate framework of the relationship between ethics and compliance and organizational psychology.According to Weinstein(2019),“Compliance is a fundamental pillar of any corporate operation and culture,and it should be based upon the principles of transparency,impartiality,responsibility,integrity,professionalism and ethics”.While“Ethics goes beyond what the law requires.It involves doing the right thing and following both the spirit and not just the letter of the law”.The founding facets of effective ethics and compliance are culture,leaders,and risks management.Policies and procedures that integrate these factors reduce the risks of non-compliance.The organization psychological environment aligns with key characteristics of the workplace such as physical setting,culture,and job characteristics.Aspects such as noise,heat,and lighting measures may considerably impact concentration,thus affecting psychological well-being.According to Ruiz-Palomino,Martínez-Cañas,and Fontrodona(2013,p.173),ethical culture directly impacts an individual’s emotional and well-being,which characterizes organizational psychology.Culture and ethics influence perceived corporate support and social exchange,which trigger ethics and compliance.

A New Dynamic Self-Organizing Method for Mobile Robot Environment Mapping

To solve the mapping problem for the mobile robots in the unknown environment, a dynamic growing self-organizing map with growing-threshold tuning automatically algorithm (DGSOMGT) based on Self-organizing Map is proposed. It introduces a value of spread factor to describe the changing process of the growing threshold dynamically. The method realizes the network structure growing by training through mobile robot movement constantly in the unknown environment. The proposed algorithm is based on self-organizing map and can adjust the growing-threshold value by the number of network neurons increasing. It avoids tuning the parameters repeatedly by human. The experimental results show that the proposed method detects the complex environment quickly, effectively and correctly. The robot can realize environment mapping automatically. Compared with the other methods the proposed mapping strategy has better topological properties and time property.

Application of the organic and environment evolving principle on the land reclamation in the open coal mines

According to the evolving principle of the organic and environment, firstly, for the purpose of growing and keeping the ground, some legume species were chosen as pioneer plants to improve the construction of soil and increased soil fertility in the light of the land term and soil condition. Along with soil fertility increased, it is necessary to culti-vate some shrubs and arbors which have extra resistance. Gradually it becomes the stereoscopic landscape of planting arbor-shrub-herb plants. So that the evolving of the organic and environment can be enhanced. Taking the land reclamation in the refuse dump of Heidaigou open coal mines as the practical example, explained the application of the organic and environment evolving principle on the land reclamation in the open coal mines.

Pollution monitoring of marine organisms grown in the Zhoushan Sea of China

The sustainable regeneration of the biggest fishery resource in the Zhoushan Sea area of China has been adversely affected in recent years. Wastewater discharged into the marine ecosystem is the main source of pollution. Affected organisms such as hairtail prawn, jellyfish, crab, laver and kelp were monitored, and the contributions and fluxes of three sort of pollutants(oils, Cr and phenol) from the expansion of rural enterprises in the Yangtze River valley, the Qiantang River valley, the Ningbo coastal area and the Zhoushan islands were calculated. More than 16 chemical pollutants were jointly responsible for the decrease in the yield and quality of marine organisms. Furthermore, combined contamination effects and their joint toxicity differed between summer and winter, because they were varied with different temperature, salinity, pH and E h.

Non-target Screening and Quantitation of Organic Chlorides in Oilfield Chemicals with Comprehensive Two Dimensional Gas Chromatography Coupled with Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry

Advanced analytical methodology based on comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometry(GC×GC-TOFMS) is proposed for investigation of organic chlorides in different oilfield chemicals.The target screening was initially carried out on 8 suspected organic chlorides by evaluating the capability of the enhanced separation and reliable identification at a trace concentration. GC×GC-TOFMS allowed for the fast and automated analysis of organic chlorides at a level of 200 μg/L. This method was subsequently applied for non-target screening of organic chlorides in different oilfield chemicals at various locations across China. 22 organic chlorides were identified and verified by comparison with pure standards in the mixed sample. Finally, this method was used to determine the content of the organic chlorides in individual samples. The result showed that the organic chloride levels in 19 of the 39 tested oilfield chemicals were above the threshold limit of 1.0 mg/L.

Relationships Between Fractal Road and Drainage Networks in Wuling Mountainous Area:Another Symmetric Understanding of Human-Environment Relations

Symmetrical relationships between humans and their environment have been referred to as an extension of symmetries in the human geographical system and have drawn great attention.This paper explored the symmetry between physical and human systems through fractal analysis of the road and drainage networks in Wuling mountainous area. We found that both the road and drainage networks reflect weak clustering distributions. The evolution of the road network shared a significant self-organizing composition, while the drainage network showed obvious double fractal characteristics The geometric fractal dimension of the road network was larger than that of the drainage network. In addition, when assigned a weight relating to hierarchy or length, neither the road network nor drainage network showed a fractal property. These findings indicated that the fractal evolution of the road network shared certain similarities with fractal distribution of the drainage network. The symmetry between the two systems resulted from an interactive process of destroying symmetry at the lower order and reconstructing symmetry at the higher order. The relationships between the fractal dimensions of the rural-urban road network, the drainage network and the urban system indicated that the development of this area was to achieve the symmetrical isomorphism of physical-human geographical systems.

Sustainable Development and the Basic Value of Natural Environment

Contrast with artificial environment, the multi-level self-organizational system of nature has great gain. Sustain-able material environment should respect nature: non-rubbish and super-cycle quality of natural ecosystem offers the material source of human development, fractal structure of nature offers new field of space and information source to this high-density and information-based society, dissipative structure of nature links the new system of energy with whole ecosystem organi-cally, and life-chain regulation is the base of sustainable life environment. Nature guarantees the physical healthy environ-ment by its all-dimension healthy factor, constructs the mental healthy environment by its quality of co-ordinate and chaos, so that guarantees the whole emergence of sustainable develop-ment on the 'super-science' level. In the view of sustainable development, construction, green economy and human health are basic fields. With the concept of ecosystem regulation, we can relate these fields organically and fulfill the task of human health, welfare and sustainable development. Ecosystem regulation is the base of sustainable development's new para-digm.

Cereal-forage crop rotations and irrigation treatment effect on water use efficiency and crops sustainability in Mediterranean environment

Agricultural systems based on crop rotations favour sustainability of cultivation and productivity of the crops. Wheat-forage crops rotations (annual winter binary mixture and perennial alfalfa meadow) combined with irrigation are the agronomical techniques able to better exploit the weather resources in Mediterranean environments. The experiment aimed to study the effect of 18 years of combined effect of irrigation and continuous durum wheat and wheat-forage rotations on productivities of crops and organic matter of topsoil. The experiments were established through 1991-2008 under rainfed and irrigated treatments and emphasized on the effect of irrigation and continuous wheat and wheat-forage crop rotations on water use efficiency and sustainability of organic matter. The effect of irrigation increased 49.1% and 66.9% the dry matter of mixture and meadow, respectively. Continuous wheat rotation reduced seed yield, stability of production, crude protein characteristics of kernel and soil organic matter. The yearly gain in wheat after forage crops was 0.04 t (ha·yr)-1 under rainfed and 0.07 t (ha·yr)-1 under irrigation treatments. The crude protein and soil organic matter of wheat rotations, compared to those of continuous wheat under rainfed and irrigated was increase in term of point percentage by 0.8 and 0.5 in crude protein and 5.1 and 4.4 in organic matter, respectively. The rotations of mixture and meadow under both irrigated treatments increased the point of percentage of organic matter over continuous wheat (9.3.and 8.5 in mixture and 12.5 and 9.5 meadow under rainfed and irrigation, respectively). Irrigation reduce the impact of weather on crop growing reducing water use efficiency (mean over rotations) for dry mater production (15.5 in meadow and 17.5 in mixture [L water (kg·dry·matter)-1 ]) and wheat seed yield. The effect of agronomic advantages achieved by forage crops in topsoil expire its effect after three years of continuous wheat rotation.

Progress of Mid Infrared Spectroscopy in Soil Environment Research

Soil is the basis of agricultural and forestry production,and it is of great significance to obtain soil information efficiently and comprehensively for soil management.Due to the complexity of soil organic components,it is difficult to obtain the information of soil organic components comprehensively by traditional chemical analysis method.As a non-destructive,real-time and high-throughput analysis method,mid infrared spectroscopy(MIR)has the ability to obtain soil organic environmental information efficiently and accurately.It can provide a large number of basic data for soil environmental monitoring,digital mapping,agricultural and forestry production,and help to realize the real-time monitoring of soil environment and the informatization of agriculture and forestry.In this paper,the detection process of MIR obtaining soil environmental spectral information and processing methods of spectral data were briefly introduced,and the research progress on extraction and influencing factors of mid infrared spectrum characteristics of soil in recent years was reviewed.Moreover,the significance and future development direction of soil science for the technology were discussed.