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Adapting to Polluted Seas: The Co-evolutionary History of Toxicants and Marine Life presents an understanding of the effects pollution has on our seas and its ever-increasing threats and challenges. The book explains how pollution changes whole ecosystems, what makes some marine species more resilient, how contamination of global oceans is affecting the evolution of detoxification pathways, DNA repair and sex hormone regulation, how this affects paradigmatic methods for risk assessments, and more. This book is directed for a broad range of environmental scientists with its focus on how pollution is shaping marine ecosystems and forcing organisms to disappear, adapt or evolve.
It can be used in teaching and training of young students and researchers, as well as in non-guided formation of non-academic technician and specialists (e.g. toxicologists, analysts and decision-makers). The compilation of critically-analyzed case studies makes this book an especially important asset that can assist decision-making and the design of monitoring programs.
List of contents
1. An historical perspective of marine pollution
2. Dilution is not the solution
3. Chemical challenge is an ancient evolutionary pressure
4. Pollution as a form of artificial selection
5. Pollution shaping marine landscapes: from gene to ecosystem
6. Marine monitoring. Old and new methods to quantify hazard and risk
7. Conclusion and Future Outlook
About the author
Pedro M. Costa is a marine biologist specializing in environmental toxicology. For more than fifteen years Costa researched the effects and responses of marine organisms to noxious chemicals at all levels of biological organisation: from DNA to ecosystem. As a toxicologist, Costa has held positions at several institutions, including the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and developed his research activities in fields as distinct as ecotoxicology, nanotoxicology and pharmacological toxicology. Costa has authored more than 100 publications within marine science and toxicology, with emphasis on histopathology, genotoxicology and ‘omics’, most of which focus on aquatic animals, both vertebrates and invertebrates. He is currently a professor in the Department of Life Sciences of the School of Science and Technology of NOVA University of Lisbon, where his team lend their expertise as environmental scientists, biotechnologists and toxicologists.
