This excellent review paper contains a lot of facts on new hazards of water pollution by synthetic surfactants and detergents. The author of the paper conducted lots of innovative experiments and discovered many new facts on negative effects of surfactants and detergents of marine and freshwater mollusks. The author discovered a very important fact: synthetic surfactants and detergents inhibit water filtration rate (clearance rate) by mollusks.
The importance of the findings which are presented in this innovative paper:
(1)
It is the first discovery of serious environmental hazards from synthetic surfactants and chemical mixtures that contain surfactants, especially in view of the fact that filtering activity of bivalves is an important part of water self-purification and the natural mechanism for maintaining water quality;
(2)
It is a new evidence of serious environmental hazards from relatively mild, sublethal effects of chemical pollutants;
(3)
It is relevant to aquaculture and mariculture. The new data discovered a new man-made impact on aquatic systems that poses a threat to aquaculture.
Some of the new facts that are presented in this paper. They all are new facts.
New negative effects of several chemicals, synthetic surfactants and chemical mixtures, on marine bivalve mollusks were discovered in this paper. An anionic surfactant, sodium dodecylsulphate (SDS), and a cationic surfactant, tetradecyltrimethylammonium bromide (TDTMA), inhibited the filtering activity of marine bivalve mollusks, oysters (Crassostrea gigas). Similar effects were exhibited by some chemical mixtures that included surfactants. Those mixtures inhibited the filtering activity of the bivalve mollusks, oysters Crassostrea gigas and marine mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis. The new results are in agreement with the author's (Dr. Sergei Ostroumov's) previous experiments, where a number of xenobiotics and/or pollutants inhibited the filtering activity of several species of marine and freshwater bivalves, e.g., it had been shown that SDS inhibited filtering activity of marine mussels Mytilus edulis (e.g., Ostroumov, 2000, 2001). This experimental approach is really very helpful in assessment of environmental hazards from man-made chemicals that can contaminate marine systems.
The reviewer recomment this paper as a very innovative and valuable contribution to marine science, ecology, and environmental toxicology.
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