The dominance and persistence of plastic debris in the marine environment are well documented. No information exists in respect to their lifespan in the marine environment. Nevertheless, the degradation potential of plastic litter items remains a critical issue for marine litter research. In the present study, polyethylene terephthalate bottles (PETs) collected from the submarine environment we...

The protection of biodiversity is one of the most important goals in terrestrial and marine conservation. Marine conservation approaches have traditionally followed the example of terrestrial initiatives. However, patterns, processes, habitats, and threats differ greatly between the 2 systems — and even within the marine environment. As a result, there is still a lack of congruence as to how to...

Invertebrates account for more than 89% of all extant organisms in the marine environment, represented by over 174,600 species (recorded to date). Such diversity is mirrored in (or more likely increased by) the microbial symbionts associated with this group and in the marine natural products (or MNPs) that they produce. Since the early 1950s over 20,000 MNPs have been discovered, including comp...

Natural products have been regarded as important sources that could produce potential chemotherapeutic agents. In the search for new bioactive entities, investigations were expanded to marine habitats. Mankind has known for the last several thousand years that marine organisms contain substances capable of potent biological activity. However, the first serious investigation of marine organisms ...

Chemical pollutants include such things as petrochemicals, dissolved metals, fertilizers and organic pesticides. Chemical pollutants are most concentrated adjacent to heavily populated areas, industry, intensive agriculture and military activities. Consequently, the adverse impacts of marine pollution are most apparent in the nearshore environment (state and territorial waters) (Green 1997). Th...

Although there have been numerous studies on arsenic in low-trophic-level marine organisms, few studies exist on arsenic in marine mammals, seabirds, and sea turtles. Studies on arsenic species and their concentrations in these animals are needed to evaluate their possible health effects and to deepen our understanding of how arsenic behaves and cycles in marine ecosystems. Most arsenic in the ...

In recent years, marine cultural tourism, an emerging tourism mode, has become more and more popular among tourists, and demonstrates broad market prospects. However, Chinese marine cultural tourism is still in the development and growth stage, and the level of customer satisfaction is uneven. The improvement of the customer satisfaction level is conducive to meeting customers’ demands in marin...

In the past decade, marine protected areas (MPAs) have become an increasingly used tool for science-based conservation and adaptive management of marine biodiversity and related natural resources. In this review paper, we report on rather complete time-course series (55 years uninterrupted) focusing on comparison of the strong difference, in number and area, in establishing marine (56 MNRs) and...