<div dir="ltr"><p style="font-size:12.8px">Hi CDHC-Listers</p><p style="font-size:12.8px">I'd like to bring to your attention a new study published yesterday in the journal <i>Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology</i> showing that a chemical widely used in personal care products such as sunscreen, poses an ecological threat to corals and coral reefs and threatens their existence.</p><p style="font-size:12.8px"></p><p style="font-size:12.8px">Oxybenzone (also known as BP-3; Benzophenone-3) <span style="background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial">is found in over 3,500 sunscreen products worldwide, and pollutes coral reefs from swimmers wearing sunscreens and through wastewater discharges from municipal sewage outfalls and from coastal septic systems. </span> Between 6,000 and 14,000 tons of sunscreen lotion are emitted into coral reef areas each year, much of which contains between one and 10% oxybenzone. The authors estimate that this puts at least 10% of global reefs at risk of high exposure, based on reef distribution in coastal tourist areas.</p><p style="font-size:12.8px">Toxicopathological effects of the sunscreen UV filter, oxybenzone on coral planulae demonstrates that exposure of coral planulae (baby coral) to oxybenzone, produces gross morphological deformities, damages their DNA, and, most alarmingly, acts as an endocrine disruptor. The latter causes the coral to encase itself in its own skeleton leading to death.<br></p><p style="font-size:12.8px">These effects were observed as low as 62 parts per trillion, the equivalent to a drop of water in six and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools</p><p style="font-size:12.8px">Measurements of oxybenzone in seawater within coral reefs in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands found concentrations ranging from 800 parts per trillion to 1.4 parts per million. This is over 12 times higher than the concentrations necessary to impact on coral.</p><p style="font-size:12.8px"></p><p style="font-size:12.8px"><br></p><div style="font-size:12.8px"><p><span lang="ES-TRAD" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><i><b>Toxicopathological effects of the sunscreen UV filter, oxybenzone (benzophenone-3), on coral planulae and cultured primary cells and its environmental contamination in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands</b></i></span><br></p><p>C.A. Downs<span style="font-size:9pt">1</span>, Esti Kramarsky-Winter<span style="font-size:9pt">2,3</span>, Roee Segal<span style="font-size:9pt">2</span>, John Fauth<span style="font-size:9pt">4</span>, Sean Knutson<span style="font-size:9pt">5</span>, Omri Bronstein<span style="font-size:9pt">2</span>, Frederic R. Ciner<span style="font-size:9pt">1</span>, Rina Jeger <span style="font-size:9pt">3</span>, Yona Lichtenfeld <span style="font-size:9pt">6</span>, Cheryl M. Woodley<span style="font-size:9pt">7,8</span>, Paul Pennington<span style="font-size:9pt">8</span>, Kelli Cadenas<span style="font-size:9pt">9</span>, Arial Kushmaro<span style="font-size:9pt">3</span>, Yossi Loya<span style="font-size:9pt">2</span></p><p><span style="font-size:9pt">1</span>Haereticus Environmental Laboratory, Virginia, US</p><p><span style="font-size:9pt">2</span>Department of Zoology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv, Israel</p><p><span style="font-size:9pt">3</span>Avram and Stella Goldstein-Goren Department of Biotechnology Engineering and the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel</p><p><span style="font-size:9pt">4</span>Department of Biology, University of Central Florida, Florida, US</p><p><span style="font-size:9pt">5</span>Pacific Biosciences Research Center, University of Hawaii, Honolulu US</p><p>6Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel</p><p><span style="font-size:9pt">7</span>Hollings Marine Laboratory, US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, Charleston, US</p><p><span style="font-size:9pt">8</span>Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research, US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, Charleston, US</p><p><span style="font-size:9pt">9</span>National Aquarium, Baltimore, Maryland US</p><p><b>Corresponding author: C. A. Downs <a href="mailto:cadowns@haereticus-lab.org" target="_blank">cadowns@haereticus-lab.org</a></b></p><p><b>ABSTRACT</b></p><p> Benzophenone-3 (BP-3; oxybenzone) is an ingredient in sunscreen lotions and personal-care products that protects against the damaging effects of ultraviolet light. Oxybenzone is an emerging contaminant of concern in marine environments; produced by swimmers and municipal, residential, and boat/ship wastewater discharges. We examined the effects of oxybenzone on the larval form (planula) of the coral Stylophora pistillata, as well as its toxicity in vitro to coral cells from this and six other coral species. Oxybenzone is a photo-toxicant; adverse effects are exacerbated in the light. Whether in darkness or light, oxybenzone transformed planulae from a motile state to a deformed, sessile condition. Planulae exhibited an increasing rate of coral bleaching in response to increasing concentrations of oxybenzone. Oxybenzone is a genotoxicant to corals, exhibiting a positive relationship between DNA-AP lesions and increasing oxybenzone concentrations. Oxybenzone is a skeletal endocrine disruptor; it induced ossification of the planula, encasing the entire planula in its own skeleton. The LC50 of planulae exposed to oxybenzone in the light for an 8 and 24 hour exposure was 3.1 mg/L and 139 μg/L, respectively. The LC50s for oxybenzone in darkness for the same time points were 16.8 mg/L and 779 μg/L. Deformity EC20 levels (24 hours) of planulae exposed to oxybenzone were 6.5 μg/L in the light and 10 μg/L in darkness. Coral cell LC50s (4 hours, in the light) for 7 different coral species ranges from 8 μg/L to 340 μg/L, while LC20s (4 hours, in the light) for the same species ranges from 0.062 μg/L to 8 μg/L. Environmental contamination of oxybenzone in the U.S. Virgin Islands ranged from 75 μg/L to 1.4 mg/L, while Hawaiian sites were contaminated between 0.8 μg/L and 19.2 μg/L. Oxybenzone poses a hazard to coral reef conservation, and threatens the resiliency of coral reefs to climate change. </p><p></p><div></div></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><br></div><div style="font-size:12.8px"><font color="#1f497d" style="font-size:12.8px">Here is the link to the article: </font><a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00244-015-0227-7" target="_blank" style="font-size:12.8px">http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00244-015-0227-7</a></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">Cheryl M. Woodley, Ph.D.<div><span>Coral Health and Disease Program</span><br><br><span>DOC/NOAA/NOS/NCCOS</span><br><span>Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research</span><br><span>Hollings Marine Laboratory</span><br><span>331 Fort Johnson Rd</span><br><span>Charleston, SC 29412</span><br><span><a>843.762.8862</a> Phone</span><br><span><a>843.762.8737</a> Fax</span><br><span><a href="mailto:cheryl.woodley@noaa.gov" target="_blank">cheryl.woodley@noaa.gov</a></span></div></div>
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