Biological Effects of Surfactants

Understanding the role of aquatic biota and the impact of pollution and chemical substances that enter aquatic ecosystems is crucial to the assessment, prevention, and remediation of damaged environments. Biological Effects of Surfactants synthesizes the most important findings from hundreds of articles and the author's current experiments on the biological effects of synthetic surfactants and detergents on individual organisms, populations, communities, and ecosystems. This book offers a new perspective of the hazards of pollution. The book draws upon concepts in hydrobiology, biogeochemical cycling, and the assimilative capacity of water-beyond the self-purification capabilities of bacteria and nutrient cycling-to examine the effects of anionic, non-ionic, and cationic surfactants as well as detergent mixtures on a wide range of organisms including bacteria, cyanobacteria, flagellates, algae, higher plants, and invertebrates. The author, a distinguished member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, establishes new quantitative characteristics of the effects and presents study results reflecting newly discovered phenomena. While proposing and substantiating new priorities and approaches for testing, assessing, and characterizing the biological activities and hazards of substances, he illustrates how the data obtained can be used to develop effective environmental remediation and protection measures to improve water quality. Biological Effects of Surfactants lays an excellent foundation for scientists to explore how hazardous wastes are absorbed in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, determine what is required for remediation and restoring water quality, and design the best approach to counteract the toxic effects of manmade surfactants using biological methods, including phytoremediation.