Excessive fluorine accumulation poses a significant threat to soil ecology and even human health, yet its impact on soil fauna, especially earthworms, remains poorly understood. This study employed multi-omics and biomarkers to investigate high fluorine-induced biochemical changes that cause tissue damages in Eisenia fetida. The results demonstrated that earthworms exhibited obvious damage with fluorine addition exceeding 200 mg kg(-1), with stress levels escalating as fluorine contents increased. Further analysis of the underlying mechanisms revealed that fluorine could upregulate genes encoding mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes I-III and downregulate those for IV-V, leading to reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation despite antioxidant system activation. The resulting ROS interfered with deoxyribonucleoside triphosphate synthesis, prompting homologous recombination as the main DNA repair mechanism. Additionally, fluorine-induced ROS also attacked and disrupted protein and lipid related metabolisms ultimately causing oxidative damages. These cumulative oxidative damages from high fluorine contents subsequently triggered autophagy or apoptosis, resulting in tissue ulceration and epithelial exfoliation. Therefore, high fluorine could threaten earthworms by inducing ROS accumulation and subsequent biomolecule damages.

To comprehensively understand the toxic effects and ecological risks of microplastics on major economic tree species, a pot experiment was conducted using polylactic acid (mPLA) microplastics as the test object to explore the effects of different concentrations (0.1%, 0.5%, 1%, 5%, 10%, w/w, mass fraction) of microplastics on the growth and physiological characteristics of mulberry trees. The study results showed that, compared with the control group, the biomass, total chlorophyll content, and net photosynthetic rate of mulberry trees in the mPLA treatment group were significantly reduced under high concentration (10%) treatment; the activities of SOD and CAT and the MDA content were significantly increased by 50.00%, 47.83%, and 60.87%, respectively, at a 10% concentration. The results indicate that the toxic effects of microplastic addition on mulberry trees are related to the type and concentration of microplastics. High concentrations of mPLA can damage the photosynthetic system of plants, affecting photosynthesis, causing oxidative damage and thus inhibiting the growth of mulberry plants.

The widespread application of copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) in agricultural production has caused growing concerns about their impact on crops. In this study, wheat root elongation was used to evaluate the toxic effect concentrations of CuO NPs in two soils with differing properties, collected from farmlands in Guangdong (GD) and Shandong (SD) provinces, China. Plant morphological and biochemical properties were also assessed to explore the toxicity mechanism of CuO NPs on wheat seedlings. The root elongation results revealed lower toxic effect concentration values in the plants grown in GD soil than in SD soil. Furthermore, the treatment with CuO NPs at 200 mg Cu kg-1 significantly reduced wheat root and shoot biomass by 35.8% and 15.8%, respectively, in GD soil. Electron microscopy showed that CuO NPs deformed wheat roots and entered leaf cells, causing deformation and damaging the cell structure. The CuO NP treatments also decreased chlorophyll content, increased antioxidant enzyme activity, and increased membrane lipid peroxidation in wheat leaves. The addition of CuO NPs significantly reduced the Zn (by 17.3%) and Fe (by 26.9%) contents in the leaves of plants grown in GD and SD soils, respectively. However, the contents of Cu, Mg, and Mn were increased by 27.4%-52.5% in GD soil and by 17.9%-71.6% in SD soil. These results suggested that CuO NPs showed greater toxicity to wheat plants grown in acidic soil than in alkaline soil and that the adverse effects of CuO NP treatments on wheat seedlings were due to a combination of CuO NPs and released Cu2+.