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From ingestion to aggregation: contrasting roles of prey and predator in microplastic processing by freshwater rotifers
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Tiny freshwater organisms called rotifers eat microplastics and can even pack them into waste pellets that sink, potentially helping remove plastic from water. But when one rotifer species preys on another, it disrupts this natural cleanup process, showing that who eats whom in nature affects where microplastics end up, including possibly in the water and food we rely on.
Microplastics (MPs) are persistent contaminants of growing concern due to their widespread occurrence and potential ecological risks in aquatic environment. While biological interactions may influence the environmental fate of MP, their role in aggregation and removal remains poorly understood. This study investigated how exposure to carboxylate-modified polystyrene microplastics influences ingestion, trophic transfer, and particle processing in the freshwater rotifers Lecane inermis and Cephalodella gibba. Experimental results showed that MPs exposure did not significantly affect population growth of either species, indicating limited acute toxicity under the tested conditions. C. gibba ingested MP efficiently through both direct uptake from biofilms and trophic transfer via prey. L. inermis actively ingested MPs and promoted particle aggregation through fecal pellet production, indicating a biological processing pathway of MPs. Predation by C. gibba reduced aggregation efficiency, likely by altering feeding activity and population density of L. inermis and by disrupting fecal pellet formation. These findings demonstrate that trophic interactions regulate microplastic ingestion, trophic transfer, and aggregation in freshwater systems, highlighting the critical role of predator–prey relationships in determining the environmental fate of microplastics.
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Researchers investigated the ability of Lecane inermis rotifers to remove microplastics from water, demonstrating that these small organisms can ingest and potentially help clear suspended plastic particles from aquatic environments.
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Researchers found that the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis preferentially grazes phytoplankton over similarly sized polyethylene microplastic beads but still ingests microplastics — including previously excreted particles — proposing a 'Plankton-Plastic Predation Loop' where the same particles are repeatedly ingested and could continually disrupt marine food webs.
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This study found that when small microplastics become incorporated into biogenic aggregates formed by aquatic organisms, they are more readily ingested by freshwater filter-feeding invertebrates than individual plastic particles alone. This mechanism suggests that microplastic uptake by freshwater zooplankton may be underestimated when biological aggregation is not accounted for.
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