Knowledge gaps in ecotoxicology studies of marine environments in Pacific Island countries and territories-A systematic review

Varea, Rufino and Piovano, Susanna and Ferreira, Marta (2020) Knowledge gaps in ecotoxicology studies of marine environments in Pacific Island countries and territories-A systematic review. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 156 . p. 111264. ISSN 0025-326X

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Abstract

The Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) are heavily dependent on the marine resources for food security, employment, government revenue and economic development, hence the concern about the potential exposure of these resources to pollutants. The main goal of this review was to identify ecotoxicology studies published that were done in PICTs. Four major gaps were identified: i) a quantitative gap, with low number of studies published on the PICTs; ii) a geographic gap, where ecotoxicology studies have unevenly covered the different PICTs; iii) a temporal gap, as no biological effect monitoring study has so far been published for the PICTs; and, iv) a pollutants gap, as all of the PICTs studies focused mainly on environmental monitoring studying on average two types of pollutants (heavy metals and pesticides) per PICT only. We suggest, therefore, the potential risk to the marine environment to be estimated by assessing the fate of pollutants via chemical and biological effect monitoring.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Biomarkers, Biomonitoring, Ecotoxicology, Oceania, Pacific Islands, Environmental risk assessment
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences Q Science > Q Science (General)
Divisions:	Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment (FSTE) > School of Marine Studies
Depositing User:	Fulori Nainoca - Waqairagata
Date Deposited:	04 Jun 2020 00:41
Last Modified:	04 Jun 2020 00:41
URI:	https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/12172

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