Radioactive pollutants (RPs, including uranium, radium, thorium, and radon, etc.) are naturally occurring radionuclides with toxicity and can be easily leaked into aquatic environments via in-situ leaching of uranium, nuclear power plant accidents, and military conflicts, causing increasingly serious water pollution. These RPs have been listed as important pollutants in water quality monitoring due to their biotoxicity and mutagenic/carcinogenic properties. To govern the ecological risk caused by the migration and transformation of these RPs, it is urgent to develop appropriate remediation methods and control strategies for addressing RPs.
Microorganisms are essential in radioactively contaminated aquatic ecosystems and play key roles in the removal of RPs and nutrient (e.g., carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur) turnover. There are various complex microbial processes including enzymatic reduction, extracellular precipitation, adsorption, chelation, and biomineralization, that can govern the fate of RPs. These microbial processes can affect the bioavailability and environmental toxicity of RPs by altering their occurrence form in aquatic environments. The composition and properties of nutrient substances in aquatic environments can not only affect microbial growth and activity, but also indirectly impact the migration and transformation of RPs by directly regulating microbial community composition, structure, and function. However, the mechanisms underlying the microbial function and their role in regulating RP conversion and nutrient cycling in radioactively contaminated aquatic environments largely remain elusive. Particularly, how microorganisms and nutrients synergistically affect the fate of RPs is still unknown. A comprehensive understanding of the interactions between functional microbes and RPs in aquatic environments and their regulatory mechanisms can provide new insights into the remediation of radioactive contaminations and the protection of human health.
The objective of this Topic Research is to explore the effect of microbial process and microbial function on RPs in radioactively contaminated aquatic environments. We welcome Original and Novel Research, Reviews, Methods, and Perspectives involving, but not limited to, the following aspects:
• The impacts of RPs on aquatic microbes
• The response mechanism and adaptive strategy of aquatic microbes to RPs
• The effect of microbe-driven element/nutrient cycling on RPs in aquatic environments
• Remediation of radioactive water through the applications of functional microbes
• Issues involved in microbial response to and interactions with other emerging pollutants in aquatic environments are also welcome
Please note that the aquatic microbiology section welcomes research using omics methods and contextual environmental data or experiments, and does not consider descriptive studies of the microbial community solely based on amplicon sequencing profiles (e.g., 16S rRNA and ITS), unless an explicit hypothesis and experimentation are made, and provide insight into the microbial process and strategy being studied.
Radioactive pollutants (RPs, including uranium, radium, thorium, and radon, etc.) are naturally occurring radionuclides with toxicity and can be easily leaked into aquatic environments via in-situ leaching of uranium, nuclear power plant accidents, and military conflicts, causing increasingly serious water pollution. These RPs have been listed as important pollutants in water quality monitoring due to their biotoxicity and mutagenic/carcinogenic properties. To govern the ecological risk caused by the migration and transformation of these RPs, it is urgent to develop appropriate remediation methods and control strategies for addressing RPs.
Microorganisms are essential in radioactively contaminated aquatic ecosystems and play key roles in the removal of RPs and nutrient (e.g., carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur) turnover. There are various complex microbial processes including enzymatic reduction, extracellular precipitation, adsorption, chelation, and biomineralization, that can govern the fate of RPs. These microbial processes can affect the bioavailability and environmental toxicity of RPs by altering their occurrence form in aquatic environments. The composition and properties of nutrient substances in aquatic environments can not only affect microbial growth and activity, but also indirectly impact the migration and transformation of RPs by directly regulating microbial community composition, structure, and function. However, the mechanisms underlying the microbial function and their role in regulating RP conversion and nutrient cycling in radioactively contaminated aquatic environments largely remain elusive. Particularly, how microorganisms and nutrients synergistically affect the fate of RPs is still unknown. A comprehensive understanding of the interactions between functional microbes and RPs in aquatic environments and their regulatory mechanisms can provide new insights into the remediation of radioactive contaminations and the protection of human health.
The objective of this Topic Research is to explore the effect of microbial process and microbial function on RPs in radioactively contaminated aquatic environments. We welcome Original and Novel Research, Reviews, Methods, and Perspectives involving, but not limited to, the following aspects:
• The impacts of RPs on aquatic microbes
• The response mechanism and adaptive strategy of aquatic microbes to RPs
• The effect of microbe-driven element/nutrient cycling on RPs in aquatic environments
• Remediation of radioactive water through the applications of functional microbes
• Issues involved in microbial response to and interactions with other emerging pollutants in aquatic environments are also welcome
Please note that the aquatic microbiology section welcomes research using omics methods and contextual environmental data or experiments, and does not consider descriptive studies of the microbial community solely based on amplicon sequencing profiles (e.g., 16S rRNA and ITS), unless an explicit hypothesis and experimentation are made, and provide insight into the microbial process and strategy being studied.