CHAPTER II. EFFECT OF OCEAN POLLUTION 

 ON MARINE ORGANISMS AND COMMUNITIES 



1. Chemical Pollution and Its Effect on Hydrobionts . 

 (S. A. Patin) 



The effect of man on the living resources of the biosphere, 

 including the World Ocean, is not limited to simple extraction of 

 biologic production, cultivation and alteration of the composition and 

 structure of populations. Over the last few decades, the influence of 

 industrialization and urbanization of modern society, intensification 

 and increased use of chemicals in agriculture and other attributes of 

 scientific and technical progress have particularly rapidly grown and 

 expanded, resulting in pollution of the biosphere and the appearance of 

 new ecologic factors. The environment is being transformed to a 

 qualitatively new state, which is sometimes referred to as the 

 "biotechnosphere" (Khil'mi, 1975). 



The pollution of the World Ocean occupies a special place in the 

 framework of this complex and multifaceted problem. Many, if not most, 

 of the toxic substances liberated by man on land enter the ocean, 

 creating situations of local, regional or global pollution of the seas 

 and oceans. Due to the unity of the structure of the ocean, regional 

 anomalies are reflected in the status of neighboring regions and of the 

 entire system as a whole. 



As a result of pollution, the distribution of certain artificial 

 substances has become planetary. The material chemical composition of 

 the marine environment, formed over the duration of a number of geologic 

 eras, to which the animal and plant life of the seas and oceans has 

 adapted by evolution, is undergoing noticeable, at times significant, 

 changes in the space of decades. The biologic consequences of this 

 process, involving the formation of a new quality of the marine 

 environment, cannot but attract the attention of modern science and must 

 be the subject of comprehensive study in many nations of the world. The 

 status and results of this type of work go far toward determining the 

 nature, scale and effectiveness of national and international efforts to 

 protect the seas and oceans from pollution. 



1 . 1 Status and Methodology of Investigations . 



We can distinguish three main trends in the overall system of 

 ecologic studies on the problem of pollution of the World Ocean: 



- Pollution monitoring--a system of observation, testing, 

 estimation and prediction of the quality of marine environment; 



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