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Ecotoxicological impact of Albendazole and low-density polyethylene microplastics on the collembola Folsomia candida (Willem, 1902)
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Scientists tested how plastic pollution and a common livestock deworming drug (albendazole) affect tiny soil creatures called springtails, which help keep soil healthy by breaking down organic matter. The plastic alone didn't harm them, but the deworming drug, even at very low, realistic levels found in manure-treated farm soil, significantly reduced their ability to reproduce. This matters because it suggests that veterinary drugs washing into soil from livestock farming could quietly damage the small organisms that keep our soil (and the food it grows) healthy, even when microplastics aren't making things worse.
Plastics offer significant benefits but also pose serious environmental concerns, especially in areas of intensive livestock production where they frequently coexist in soil with veterinary drugs such as albendazole (ABZ), a broad-spectrum anthelmintic. ABZ can enter soil ecosystems either directly through cattle excretion or indirectly via the application of contaminated manure, raising concerns about its potential harmful effects on soil health. Collembola play a vital role in soil ecosystems through organic matter decomposition and nutrient cycling and the species Folsomia candida is widely used in ecotoxicological studies due to its sensitivity to pollutants. This study examined the individual and combined effects of 28-day exposure to low-density polyethylene (LDPE) microplastics (MPs) at 0 and 0.1 w /w% (0 and 1000 mg kg −1 ), alone or in combination with ABZ at 0, 0.0001, 0.1, and 1 w/w % (0, 1, 1000, and 10,000 mg kg −1 ) on F. candida in a sandy soil (LUFA 2.2.). Results showed that LDPE alone had no lethal or reproductive effects on F. candida , while ABZ, either alone or with MPs, significantly reduced the insect reproduction, pointing at ABZ as the key driver of the adverse effects. Reproductive inhibition was observed even at 1 mg kg −1 , suggesting that ABZ may affect soil mesofauna at concentrations that can occur in manure-amended agricultural soils. The absence of differences in F. candida survival and reproduction suggests no synergistic effects between ABZ and MPs, nor any potential co-action mechanisms influencing ABZ behaviour under the specific experimental conditions, including soil substrate characteristics.
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Exposing the soil invertebrate Folsomia candida to nanoplastics and antibiotics across two temperatures revealed that nanoplastics disrupted gut microbiome diversity at 20°C, while warming to 22°C reversed that effect, with the endosymbiont Wolbachia playing a key regulatory role. This work shows that climate warming fundamentally alters how nanoplastics affect soil organisms, complicating predictions about ecosystem impacts as global temperatures rise.
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This review pulls together existing research on how antibiotics and microplastics, both common pollutants in lakes and rivers, affect tiny water creatures called Daphnia, which are important indicators of freshwater ecosystem health. The key takeaway: when these two pollutants combine, they appear to cause more harm together than either does alone, suggesting our current safety assessments (which typically test pollutants one at a time) may be underestimating real-world risks. While this study focused on aquatic life rather than humans directly, it matters because these same waterways often feed into our drinking water and food supply, so better understanding combined pollutant effects could help protect
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Researchers exposed common earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris) to soil containing microplastics at concentrations up to 7% by weight and found that while earthworms did not avoid contaminated soil, microplastics caused physical lesions on mucus membranes, elevated acetylcholinesterase levels indicating neurotoxic stress, and particle accumulation throughout the gastrointestinal tract.
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