Due to the increasing ability of preparation, control and measurement of quantum states, experimentalists need to take into consideration any possible external influence on the dynamics of the system of interest. At this level of precision, in fact, many different sources of classical or quantum noise can endanger the performance of tasks in which purely quantum effects play a major role. The theory of open quantum systems has then become a fundamental tool to study the effects of an external environment on the system dynamics and to develop ways to protect these systems from its detrimental influence. In this seminar I will provide a general introduction to the most important effects of fundamental open system dynamics and report about results obtained during my PhD activity on the dynamics of entanglement and general quantum correlations in bipartite continuous variable open system models.