Mesopotamian Journal of Marine Science

A species of freshwater shrimp belonging to Macrobrachium Genus was recently recorded from Iraqi water. Morphological features accompanied by COI gene nucleotides sequencing identified that the shrimp species is Macrobrachum equidens, four forms of rostrum were observed. The total length of M. equidens recorded in this study was ranged from 40.38 - 55.33 mm for females and from 45.51 to 58.72 mm for males, while weight for females and males were 0.36 to 5.44g and 0.53 - 6.01 g respectively.

An innovative, inexpensive, and environmentally acceptable approach is to use microbes to degrade hazardous materials to reduce soil pollution. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify and assess the performance of bioremediation bacteria in soil located adjacent to oil fields. Soil samples were collected, diluted, and grown on a mineral selective medium supplemented with methanol as the sole carbon source. Based on the phenotypic, biochemical, and molecular characteristics, seven out of fifteen isolates were identified as Methylorubrum extorquens. This isolate displayed a high growth rate on methanol, with optical density values of 1.9 at 1% concentration and 1.8 at 2% concentration. Furthermore, it can grow in crude oil as an energy and carbon source. It exhibited a density of 0.09 after seven days of incubation. To our knowledge, this study is the first to report the ability of Methylorubrum extorquens to grow on crude oil and degrade polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at a ratio of 65.69% of (v/v) crude oil 0.5%. Due to its presence in contaminated soils, the isolated strain has potential as a natural biodegradation tool to eliminate contamination in oil-related compounds.

This work focused on the elimination of lead ions from aqueous solutions using titanium dioxide nanotubes synthesised by anodization method as an adsorbent material using the batch system. The prepared titanium dioxide tubes(TNTs) were characterized using a scanning electron microscope device(SEM). The prepared tubes were within the nanoscale. Various conditions affected the adsorption process were studied, such as equilibrium time, temperature, acidity function and initial concentration of lead ions. It was found that the highest removal percentage occurred at the pH = 8 and that the time required for system equilibrium was 60 minutes. It was also found that the removal percentage increases with increasing temperature, which indicates the adsorption reaction as an endothermic. The Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherms were also studied. The Freundlich equation was the most appropriate to the studied system. The thermodynamic studies also exhibited that the removal process was spontaneous, and the ΔS positive values indicated randomness increasing.

The influence of the suggested regulator barrage of the Shatt Al-Arab river on water level ‎fluctuations was tested by using a one-dimensional model. The numerical model period ‎covered six months in 2017. The performance of the model was evaluated by comparing ‎the estimated water level at two locations, Sihan, and Abu Flous. A good fit between the ‎observed and simulated water levels at the two locations was achieved with root mean ‎square error at 0.13 and 0.06 m, respectively. The model results showed that there is an ‎increase in high water levels near areas located below the barrage in both the spring and ‎neap tidal phases. The increasing of water level below the barrage could be attributed to ‎behave the river as a convergent tidal channel that characterizes by the increasing water ‎level as tidal wave propagated further toward inland areas. The highest increase in the ‎water level reaches about 0.4 m below the barrage. Additionally, the tidal range also ‎increased along the river course. The maximum increase in tidal range reaches about 0.9 m ‎below the barrage. The results obtained could be useful for a general assessment of the ‎hydrodynamic of the Shatt Al- Arab river and could give a general view in the case of the ‎construction of such a barrage to tackle the salinity intrusion problem in this river.‎

The study was conducted to evaluate the importance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa plasmids in their efficiency for n-alkanes biodegradation. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was isolated and characterized using biochemical and genetic tests, then acridine orange was used as a chemical plasmid curing agent, the loss of plasmids was confirmed by profiling using agarose gel electrophoresis comparing with the wild type, the two bands appear in the gel which located between 3Kbp to 4Kbp refer to the two plasmids harbouring by wild type. The biodegradation efficiency of wild and plasmid cured bacteria was 85% and 81.63% respectively, the study demonstrated that the loss of Pseudomonas aeruginosa plasmids leads to a slight reduction effect of the n-alkanes biodegradation efficiency

The species Bugula neritina (Linnaeus, 1758) of the Bugulidae family was observed on the artificial reefs at a depth of 15 meters, (from February to May 2021) in the mediolittoral waters of Ibn Hani site (north Lattakia City, Syria). The morphological and characteristics have been used to confirm the new Bryozoa. It is the first record of this species in the Syrian marine waters. B. neritina colonies abundance are 3 colonies in 1200cm2, and they were found with coralligenous macroalgae, Codium sp (green algae), Polysiphonia sp. (red algae), Balanus and Tunicates, attached to hard substrate (artificial reefs), in salinity 39%.

In this study a certain chemical elements Cu, Mn and Pb were ‎determined in water, and another set of Cd, Cu, Fe, and Zn were ‎determined in sediments from selected sites (1) Qurnah, (2) Al-‎Noor Bridge, (3) Saad Bridge, (4) Sindbad Island, (5) Al-Ashar, ‎‎(6) Abu Al-Khaseeb, (7) Seebah, and (8) Al-Faw along the ‎Southern Iraqi water ways during the year 2015. Low levels of ‎heavy metals were recorded in the water of Shatt Al-Arab river, ‎they were in the range 0.00735 - 0.02090, 0.00505 - 0.02145, ‎and 0.00150 - 0.0837 µg/l for Cu, Mn, and Pb respectively, and ‎lower values recorded were for the toxic Pb metal. On the other ‎hand levels of heavy metals in the sediments were little bit high ‎and in the range 0.1172488 - 0.614806, 17.175343 - 40.156639, ‎‎8156.970 - 21021.63, and 31.864781 - 79.160779 µg/g dry ‎weight for Cd, Cu, Fe, and Zn respectively. Fe recorded the ‎highest levels of heavy metals in all sites due to the nature of the ‎sedimentary valley in Iraq. Low levels of heavy metals Cu, Fe, ‎and Zn were recorded in the sediments of Seebah (site no.7) due ‎to the effect of sediment movements through Karun River from ‎the Iranian territories. More over levels of all investigated heavy ‎metals were recorded high values in the water from Ashar (site 5) ‎due to corrosion of marine vessels sunk in the area since the Iraqi-‎Iranian War 1980-1988.‎