Abstract
Petroleum hydrocarbon pollution is a global concern, particularly in coastal environments. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are regarded as the most toxic components of petroleum hydrocarbons. In this study, the biomonitoring and ranking effects of petroleum hydrocarbons and PAHs on the marine fish model Oryzias melastigma embryos were determined in the Jiulong River Estuary (JRE) and its adjacent waters in China. The results showed that the levels of petroleum hydrocarbons from almost all sites met the primary standard for marine seawater quality, and the concentrations of the 16 priority PAHs in the surface seawater were lower compared with those in other coastal areas worldwide. A new fish expert system based on the embryotoxicity of O. melastigma (OME-FES) was developed and applied in the field to evaluate the biological effects of petroleum hydrocarbons and PAHs. The selected physiological index and molecular indicators in OME-FES were appropriate biomarkers for indicating the harmful effects of petroleum hydrocarbons and PAHs. The outcome of OME-FES revealed that the biological effect levels of the sampling sites ranged from level I (no stress) to level III (medium stress), which is further corroborated by the findings of nested analysis of variance (ANOVA) models. Our results suggest that the OME-FES is an effective tool for evaluating and ranking the biological effects of marine petroleum hydrocarbons and PAHs. This method may also be applied to evaluate other marine pollutants based on its framework.
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Acknowledgements
Special thanks are extended to Kuang Weiming and Chen Jinmin from the Third Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, for their assistance in chemical analysis.
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Foundation item: The Scientific Research Foundation of the Third Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources under contract Nos 2020014 and 2020017; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract No. 41977211; the National Program on Global Change and Air-Sea Interaction under contract No. GASI-02-SCS-YDsum.
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Table S1. Concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons, PAHs, PCBs and OCPs in the artificial seawater (control) and the surface seawater collected from twelve sampling sites in the JRE and its adjacent waters.
Table S2. The primer sequences used in the RT-qPCR analysis.
Fig. S1. Mortality of O. melastigma embryos treated with surface seawater samples at different sites compared with the control after 4 d exposure. Data are expressed as the mean ± standard error. Significant differences were accepted at *p < 0.05. Five biological replicates were conducted.
Fig. S2. BSD score of O. melastigma embryos treated with surface seawater samples at different sites compared with the control after 4 d exposure. Data are expressed as the mean ± standard error. Significant differences were accepted at *p < 0.05. Five biological replicates were conducted.
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Zheng, R., Fang, C., Hong, F. et al. An innovative classification system for ranking the biological effects of marine aromatic hydrocarbons based on fish embryotoxicity. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 43, 153–162 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-023-2245-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-023-2245-z