Impacts of Emerging Contaminants and Their Ecotoxicological Consequences

Emerging contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), nanomaterials, trace metals, pesticides, and microplastic, are important factors that constrain productivity, individual health, reproduction, and the ecosystem development of aquatic species. The increasing number and diversity of emerging contaminants have shown multiple impacts on biological systems, biodiversity, and ecosystem functions, which may finally lead to significant changes in populations and communities in aquatic environments. In recent years, many emerging pollutants in natural ecosystems have attracted widespread attention with the advances in detection and monitoring technologies. Furthermore, the adverse effects of emerging environmental pollutants, particularly those that occur at environmentally relevant concentrations, may appear only when they co-occur with another stressor, but knowledge about these impacts on aquatic species is still limited. Thus, more studies on the effects of those emerging environmental contaminants on aquatic organisms are critical to better assess their risk.

To better understand the impacts of emerging pollutants on aquatic species, studies on their toxic mechanisms and potential ecological consequences are both necessary. By integrating the linkages among the impacts of the molecular mechanisms of toxicities, the erosion of individual species, the defective development of biological communities, and the collapse of the ecosystem functioning, the studies can strengthen scientific knowledge to assess their potential risks and develop the policy for controlling their disposal to the aquatic environment. Thus, this research topic focuses on the studies to explore the linkages between emerging contaminants (e.g., PPCPs, nanomaterials, trace metals, pesticides, and microplastic), the biological responses of aquatic species (at the levels of molecular, cellular, organ and behavioral responses), and their possible ecological consequence (at the levels of population and communities) in marine and freshwater environments. It calls for original and novel papers related to the impact of emerging pollutants on the productivity, individual health, reproductive success, and ecosystem development of aquatic species in any of the following (but not limited to) research topics:

• Toxicity of emerging pollutants on the marine and freshwater species, their model of action and underlying mechanisms

• Impacts of emerging pollutants on the ecological functions of marine and freshwater ecosystems

• Large-scale survey of the emerging contaminants in aquatic environments and their risk assessment

• Combined effects of multiple emerging pollutants on marine and freshwater species and related mechanisms