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Anthropogenic chemicals as drivers of change for coastal ecosystems: wetlands, mangroves and seagrass habitats.
Citation:
Lewis, M. Anthropogenic chemicals as drivers of change for coastal ecosystems: wetlands, mangroves and seagrass habitats. Presented at ASLO 2013 Aquatic Sciences Meeting, February 17 - 22, 2013.
Impact/Purpose:
Presentation summarizes a literature review for contaminant uptake and toxicity to plants in near-coastal ecosystems.
Description:
Coastal wetlands, mangrove and seagrass habitats are rapidly declining worldwide which reduces their many ecological services. This presentation summarizes the results of a literature survey conducted to determine scientific understanding of contaminant uptake and toxicity of non-nutrient chemical stressors in coastal, plant-dominated ecosystems and to assess the role of chemical contaminants in reducing the ecological condition of shoreline angiosperms. The literature for the fate and effects of common near-shore chemicals is scattered and largely limited to a few trace metals. Chemical fate information for sediments and plant tissues dominate the database. Phytotoxicity information is lacking for most common coastal emergent and submergent plants. When information are available, experimental conditions have varied considerably and differences in inter-specific sensitivities, test compounds, duration of exposure and response parameters limit generalizations and extrapolations among species and single chemicals. Media-specific information describing exposure concentrations, toxic effect levels and critical body burdens of common near-shore contaminants are needed for most emergent and submergent species to support integrated risk assessments at multiple geographic scales, and to evaluate the ability of numerical, effects-based criteria to protect these often at-risk aquatic plants.