The Impacts of Environmental Pollutants on Microalgae and Cyanobacteria

Abstract

Efforts are continuously being made to understand the non-target effects of environmental pollutants toward microalgae and cyanobacteria because of their ubiquity in aquatic and terrestrial environments and their highly adaptive survival abilities under environmental and evolutionary pressure over geological time. Depending on the toxicity criteria employed for these ecologically beneficial organisms, the impact of low and high doses of pollutants can range from stimulation to total inhibition. All of the investigations carried out so far have been predominantly concerned with individual chemicals despite the occurrence of pollutants in mixtures. In addition, only individual isolates have been primarily used to gather scientific information on the toxicity of pollutants. The risk assessment of pollutants toward these organisms necessitates further investigations, combining innovative molecular ecological methods and those for in situ analysis at the community level. The present review highlights the toxic influences of organic and inorganic pollutants and the response in terms of detoxification and resistance by these organisms.

KEY WORDS:

• cyanobacteria
• environmental pollutants
• microalgae
• nontarget effects