“…Diuron metabolites, notably DCPMU (1-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-3-methyl urea), DCPU (1-(3,4-dichlorophenyl urea) and DCA (3,4-dichloroaniline) (Tillmanns et al 1978), have been detected in the UK (Gatidou et al 2003), Japan (Okamura et al 2003) and Spain (Martinez and Barcelò 2001). Several bioassays tests assessed the toxicity of Diuron, which is an inhibitor of photosynthesis (Konstantinou and Albanis 2004), while its principal aerobic and anaerobic degradation products, which generally show higher toxicity than the parent compound (Gatidou et al 2007), are a threat to several marine living organisms such as algae, crustacean, fishes, echinoderma, diatoms and mammalians (Tixier et al 2000;Bonnemoy et al 2004;Fernàndez-Alba et al 2002;Okamura et al 2002;Kobayashi and Okamura 2002;Hernando et al 2003;Huang et al 2005;Manzo et al 2006;Bellas et al 2005;Koutsaftis and Aoyama 2007;Silkina et al 2009;Giacomazzi and Cochet 2004); nonetheless, Diuron at 10 mg/L had no significant effect on sea-water aerobic cultivable microorganisms (Harino et al 2005). The recalcitrance of Diuron has been reported in bioassays using a ship-fouling diatom (Callow and Willingham 1996), in laboratory investigations conducted in marine seawater, where Diuron was not photodegraded by sunlight irradiation (Harino et al 2005), its concentration was not reduced over 42 days of aerobic incubation (Thomas et al 2002), nor it was in anaerobic marine sediments, in which half-lives of 14 days were calculated (Thomas et al 2003).…”