Anthropic pollution is severely compromising terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, ultimately affecting human and environmental health. Inefficient treatment of urban, agricultural, or industrial wastewaters leads to severe contamination of water bodies, while flue-gasses emission dramatically increases atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gasses (GHGs) levels. Wastewater discharge from livestock farming and agro-food industries typically contains high loads of nutrients leading to water eutrophication. Mining activities, petroleum refineries, paper, textile, and metallurgical industries are significant sources of heavy metal and hydrocarbon contaminations. Plastic litter is also known to be present throughout oceans and rivers and microplastics are often found within animal tissues. Because of the significant environmental damage associated with human activity in the modern world, and given that the human population and associated activities are predicted to keep growing in the coming decades, more effective environmental-friendly actions are needed. Because of the current climate and environmental emergencies, a rapid shift from a take-make-dispose to a circular economy is required and waste products of different origins should be increasingly reused and recycled. Within this context, the exploitation of marine and freshwater microorganisms can contribute to mitigating aquatic pollution and (in the case of photosynthetic microbes) greenhouse gasses in highly industrialized areas. The main bottleneck of these bio-based processes is their poor economic viability compared to traditional approaches. To date, a large plethora of genomic and metabolomic data regarding living organisms and their metabolic changes related to the impact of pollutants, and the detoxification mechanisms are available. This is likely to improve our ability to restore polluted habitats, although studies at both small and large scales are required. This research topic intends to gather the most recent approaches towards environmental-friendly treatments based on accumulation or degradation of aquatic pollutants by microorganisms, as well as reduction of carbon dioxide and other flue gas components in the atmosphere. We believe that a collection of studies aimed at removing and eventually recycling most pollutants can contribute to improving our knowledge in bioremediation and habitat restoration. We would like to set a collection on the advances in aquatic bioremediation of nutrients, hydrocarbons, heavy metals, microplastics, GHGs as well as other pollutants. We are seeking contributions aiming at:(1) Improving our understanding of genetic and enzymatic mechanisms for the sequestration, detoxification, and/or degradation of pollutants(2) Setting-up and evaluating pilot bioremediation plants at laboratory and pilot scale(3) Scaling-up attempts of already validated approaches considering large flows of civil and industrial wastewaters and flue gasses pollutantsStudies based on aquatic microbes are welcome in this research topic. Both sequestration (heavy metals, GHGs) and degradation (hydrocarbons, plastics) processes, as well as innovative strategies and technologies to improve the efficiency of pollutants removal, will be considered.
Anthropic pollution is severely compromising terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, ultimately affecting human and environmental health. Inefficient treatment of urban, agricultural, or industrial wastewaters leads to severe contamination of water bodies, while flue-gasses emission dramatically increases atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gasses (GHGs) levels. Wastewater discharge from livestock farming and agro-food industries typically contains high loads of nutrients leading to water eutrophication. Mining activities, petroleum refineries, paper, textile, and metallurgical industries are significant sources of heavy metal and hydrocarbon contaminations. Plastic litter is also known to be present throughout oceans and rivers and microplastics are often found within animal tissues. Because of the significant environmental damage associated with human activity in the modern world, and given that the human population and associated activities are predicted to keep growing in the coming decades, more effective environmental-friendly actions are needed. Because of the current climate and environmental emergencies, a rapid shift from a take-make-dispose to a circular economy is required and waste products of different origins should be increasingly reused and recycled. Within this context, the exploitation of marine and freshwater microorganisms can contribute to mitigating aquatic pollution and (in the case of photosynthetic microbes) greenhouse gasses in highly industrialized areas. The main bottleneck of these bio-based processes is their poor economic viability compared to traditional approaches. To date, a large plethora of genomic and metabolomic data regarding living organisms and their metabolic changes related to the impact of pollutants, and the detoxification mechanisms are available. This is likely to improve our ability to restore polluted habitats, although studies at both small and large scales are required. This research topic intends to gather the most recent approaches towards environmental-friendly treatments based on accumulation or degradation of aquatic pollutants by microorganisms, as well as reduction of carbon dioxide and other flue gas components in the atmosphere. We believe that a collection of studies aimed at removing and eventually recycling most pollutants can contribute to improving our knowledge in bioremediation and habitat restoration. We would like to set a collection on the advances in aquatic bioremediation of nutrients, hydrocarbons, heavy metals, microplastics, GHGs as well as other pollutants. We are seeking contributions aiming at:(1) Improving our understanding of genetic and enzymatic mechanisms for the sequestration, detoxification, and/or degradation of pollutants(2) Setting-up and evaluating pilot bioremediation plants at laboratory and pilot scale(3) Scaling-up attempts of already validated approaches considering large flows of civil and industrial wastewaters and flue gasses pollutantsStudies based on aquatic microbes are welcome in this research topic. Both sequestration (heavy metals, GHGs) and degradation (hydrocarbons, plastics) processes, as well as innovative strategies and technologies to improve the efficiency of pollutants removal, will be considered.