Occurrence, Behavior and Ecotoxicity of Organophosphorus Pesticides (OPPs) in Marine Environments: A Review

Abstract

Since the banning of popular organochlorine pesticides in 1970s, organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs) started to be widely used throughout the world for agricultural purposes. With an increasing popularity since the 1980s, they were simultaneously applied with organochlorine pesticides for several years. OPPs represent the most commonly used pesticides around the world, in order to protect agricultural crops against pests, private houses, gardens and in veterinary practices. Chemically, although they have a lower half-life in the environment than organochlorine pesticides, a moderate persistence and ecotoxicological effects on non-target species like invertebrates, fish, birds, and even humans have been demonstrated. OPPs resistance to degradation leads to a half-life ranging from hours-at high temperature, extreme pH or high radiation to more than 6 months in the marine environment. They commonly enter to the marine environments transported by river runoff from the continent in dissolved phase or sorbed to particulate matter. Once in the water, they can enter the trophic network causing damage to the biota; in simultaneous, they can undergo chemical, photochemical and biological degradative processes which could result in more toxic metabolites than the parental compounds. This review-chapter will describe the development history of the organophosphorus pesticides class, their environmental fate, behavior, and currents concentrations in marine environments and the state of the art of their possible effects to the marine biota.