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Synergistic adverse effects of microfibers and freshwater acidification on host-microbiota interactions in the water flea Daphnia magna
Summary
Researchers investigated how microfiber pollution combined with freshwater acidification affects the water flea Daphnia magna. They found that acidic conditions caused the organisms to ingest more microfibers, leading to reduced reproduction, slower growth, and shifts in the balance of gut bacteria toward more harmful species. The study demonstrates that climate-related water acidification can worsen the biological impacts of microplastic pollution.
Microfibers are the most common type of microplastics in freshwater environments. Anthropogenic climate stressors, such as freshwater acidification (FA), can interact with plastic pollution to disrupt freshwater ecosystems. However, the underlying mechanisms responsible for the interactive effects of microfibers and FA on aquatic organisms remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigated individual Daphnia magna-microbiota interactions affected by interactions between microfibers and FA (MFA). We found that the accumulated amount of microfibers in pH-treatment groups was significantly higher than in the control groups, resulting in negative consequences on reproduction, growth, and sex ratio. We also observed that MFA interactions induced immunity- and reproduction-related biological processes. In particular, the abundance of pathogenic bacteria increased only in MFA groups, indicating that MFA interactions can cause intestinal damage. Our integrated analysis of microbiomes and host transcriptomes revealed that synergistic adverse effects of MFAs are closely related to changes in microbial communities, suggesting that D. magna fitness and the microbial community are causally linked. These finding may help elucidate the toxicity mechanisms governing the responses of D. magna to microfibers and acidification interactions, and to host-microbiome-environment interactions.
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