Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in marine species

Abstract

In the last years, there has been an increasing acknowledgment of the vital need to preserve the health of our oceans and the myriad life forms that rely on them. In light of this, the United Nations has included the conservation and the sustainable use of oceans and marine resources into its 17 sustainable development goals (United Nations, 2015). At the same time, with the global recognition of the detrimental impacts caused by anthropogenic pollution on marine ecosystems, the United Nations has issued a call for action, urging the prevention and significant reduction of all kinds of marine pollution by 2025. It is noteworthy the potential risk to wildlife, in particular for species that face multiple anthropogenic stressors and/or susceptible to accumulate high levels of toxic substances, such as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Despite being banned for several years, stable and high levels of legacy POPs, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), continue to be reported in top predator species, including some cetacean populations (Jepson et al., 2016; Law and Jepson, 2017; Sonne et al., 2018; Stuart-Smith and Jepson, 2017). In certain instances, these documented levels seem to pose substantial risks at both the individual and population levels (Desforges et al., 2018). Simultaneously, specific regions, such as the Mediterranean Sea and to lesser extent the North East Atlantic, have been considered highly polluted areas, where wildlife populations and the entire ecosystems seem to be particularly impacted by the occurrence of these substances (Andersen et al., 2022; Benn et al., 2010; Carpenter, 2019; Danovaro, 2003; El-Kholy et al., 2012; Halpern et al., 2008; Marsili et al., 2018; Merhaby et al., 2019; Nash et al., 2023; Ramos-Miras et al., 2019; Sharma et al., 2021).