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Analyzing species sensitivity distribution of evidently edible microplastics for freshwater biota
Summary
Researchers developed a new framework for assessing the ecological risks of microplastics to freshwater organisms by focusing on species that are known to actually ingest them. The study found that current risk assessment methods may underestimate the danger to freshwater ecosystems and that species known to eat microplastics showed different sensitivity patterns than the broader population of test organisms.
Assessing the ecological risks of microplastics is difficult because of the limited availability of reliable ecotoxicity data. Although freshwater is a valuable sink for microplastics, the current framework for ecological risk assessment using traditional toxicity data is not applicable to freshwater ecosystems. Herein, species sensitivity distribution (SSD) curves were compared for edible and all microplastics exposed to aquatic organisms based on traditional endpoint-based and all-endpoint-based databases. Freshwater toxicity data for microplastics were screened after verifying microplastic presence in test species (56 toxicity datapoints for one microalga, three water fleas, one fish, and one crab; 0.02-100 µm-sized microplastics). SSD and curve parameters were compared with or without non-traditional toxicity endpoints. The HC in all endpoint databases was more sensitive than that in the traditional endpoint database and showed a good fit. SSD curves derived from the database for all microplastics were compared and analyzed with edible microplastics. HCx increased for edible microplastics (0.02-100 µm-sized) than for all microplastics (0.02-200 µm-sized), and the size of edible microplastics was lower than of all microplastics. Thus, using non-traditional toxicity data, the SSD approach compensates for the limited ecotoxicity data on microplastics while considering the internalization of microplastics in biota.
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