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The Combined Effect of Plastic Particles Size and Concentration on Rotifers’ (Brachionus plicatilis) Performance
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Researchers exposed the marine rotifer Brachionus plicatilis to polystyrene microspheres across multiple sizes and concentrations for 20 days, finding that near-nanometer particles at high concentrations severely impaired body size, maturity timing, reproduction, and survival, reducing net reproductive yield to one-third of controls.
The presence of microplastics in aquatic ecosystems is of increasing global concern. Nano-sized plastics, in particular, can penetrate the cell membrane and cause biological death. Our study evaluated the combined impacts of several polystyrene microspheres’ sizes and nominal concentrations on the overall performance changes of Brachionus plicatilis. Experimental animals were exposed to three microplastic sizes (0.08, 0.5 and 6 µm) and five nominal concentrations (0, 0.5, 2, 8, 32 µg mL−1) for 20 d. Our results showed that the toxicological effect of particle size on rotifers did not significantly depend on the nominal concentration. The interaction between the nominal concentration and size occurred only for body length and lorica width. Specifically, high nominal concentrations of microplastics that were close to nanometer size significantly impaired the overall vitality of rotifers, embodied in shortage of body type, delay in the arrival of maturity, reduction in the cumulative number of neonates, and the advance of the death process. In comparison, fair-sized size (0.5 and 6 µm) displayed non-significant damage except for individual groups. Most notably, the net reproductive yield was only a third of what it was in the original environment, implying that there was not much fertility left. Besides, with the development of rotifers, the adverse effects of polystyrene microsphere drive had become more and more serious.
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