Jonathan Leung

I am a marine biologist with broad research interests from molecular to community level. In recent years, my research has been focusing on how climate change affects the fitness and survival of marine organisms as well as their adaptations. Apart from marine biology, I am also interested in environmental science and focus on studying the impacts of pollutants (e.g. heavy metals, organic pollutants and microplastics) on the environment and human health. I am passionate about scientific writing and have developed some useful skills to increase the quality of papers. 

Climate change biology

• How hypoxia, warming and ocean acidification affect the fitness and survival of marine organisms via physiological pathways.
• How ocean acidification affects calcifying organisms and their compensatory responses from the perspectives of physiology, geochemistry and materials science.

Leung, J.Y.S., Chen, Y., Nagelkerken, I., Zhang, S., Xie, Z., Connell, S.D., 2020. Calcifiers can adjust shell building at the nanoscale to resist ocean acidification. Small 16, 2003186

Leung, J.Y.S., Russell, B.D., Connell, S.D., 2020. Linking energy budget to physiological adaptation: how a calcifying gastropod adjusts or succumbs to ocean acidification and warming. Sci. Total Environ. 715, 136939

Leung, J.Y.S., Russell, B.D., Connell, S.D., 2019. Adaptive responses of marine gastropods to heatwaves. One Earth 1, 374–381

Leung, J.Y.S., Doubleday, Z.A., Nagelkerken, I., Chen, Y., Xie, Z., Connell, S.D., 2019. How calorie-rich food could help marine calcifiers in a CO₂-rich future. Proc. R. Soc. B 286, 20190757

Leung, J.Y.S., Russell, B.D., Connell, S.D., 2017. Mineralogical plasticity acts as a compensatory mechanism to the impacts of ocean acidification. Environ. Sci. Technol. 51, 2652–2659

Environmental Science

• The behaviour and ecological risk of anthropogenic pollutants (e.g. heavy metals, pesticides, flame retardants and endocrine disrupting chemicals) in the environment.
• The potential strategies to remediate the contaminated environment. 
• The biological, ecological and social impacts of microplastics.

Wu, F., Wang, Y., Leung, J.Y.S., Huang, W., Zeng, J., Tang, Y., Chen, J., Shi, A., Yu, X., Xu, X., Zhang, H., Cao, L., 2020. Accumulation of microplastics in typical commercial aquatic species: a case study at a productive aquaculture site in China. Sci. Total Environ. 708, 135432.

Wu, Q., Leung, J.Y.S., Du, Y., Kong, D., Shi, Y., Wang, Y., Xiao, T., 2019. Trace metals in e-waste lead to serious health risk through consumption of rice growing near an abandoned e-waste recycling site: Comparisons with PBDEs and AHFRs. Environ. Pollut. 247, 46–54.

Wu, Q., Leung, J.Y.S., Geng, X., Chen, S., Huang, X., Li, H., Huang, Z., Zhu, L., Chen, J., Lu, Y., 2015. Heavy metal contamination of soil and water in the vicinity of an abandoned e-waste recycling site: Implications for dissemination of heavy metals. Sci. Total Environ. 506–507, 217–225

Editorial work

• Frontiers in Marine Science. Fitness of Marine Calcifiers in the Future Acidifying Ocean. 
• Oceans. Impacts of Climate Change on the Fitness and Survival of Marine Organisms. (A new open access journal published by MDPI, but the article processing charge is fully subsidised in 2020)

Your contributions to these special issues are much appreciated!