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Developmental toxicity of pre-production plastic pellets affects a large swathe of invertebrate taxa
Summary
This study tested the toxicity of chemicals leaching from plastic pre-production pellets (nurdles) on the embryonic development of animals from all major animal groups, including sea urchins, mussels, worms, and crustaceans. The plastic leachates caused developmental problems across nearly all species tested, including disrupted cell formation, abnormal body shapes, and impaired growth. These findings suggest that plastic pollution could have widespread, potentially devastating effects on marine animal populations that humans depend on for food.
Microplastics pose risks to marine organisms through ingestion, entanglement, and as carriers of toxic additives and environmental pollutants. Plastic pre-production pellet leachates have been shown to affect the development of sea urchins and, to some extent, mussels. The extent of those developmental effects on other animal phyla remains unknown. Here, we test the toxicity of environmental mixed nurdle samples and new PVC pellets for the embryonic development or asexual reproduction by regeneration of animals from all the major animal superphyla (Lophotrochozoa, Ecdysozoa, Deuterostomia and Cnidaria). Our results show diverse, concentration-dependent impacts in all the species sampled for new pellets, and for molluscs and deuterostomes for environmental samples. Embryo axial formation, cell specification and, specially, morphogenesis seem to be the main processes affected by plastic leachate exposure. Our study serves as a proof of principle for the potentially catastrophic effects that increasing plastic concentrations in the oceans and other ecosystems can have across animal populations from all major animal superphyla.