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Trophic transfer of microbeads to jellyfish and the importance of aging microbeads for microplastic experiments
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Researchers found that jellyfish ephyrae ingested 35 times more microbeads through trophic transfer from Artemia nauplii than by direct ingestion, and that aged microbeads were ingested at higher rates than virgin microbeads, highlighting the importance of realistic aging conditions in microplastic experiments.
Concepts in microplastics studies are not well established due to the emerging nature of microplastic research, especially in jellyfish. We conducted experiments to test whether ephyrae would ingest more microbeads via trophic transfer than direct ingestion and whether medusae would ingest more aged microbeads than virgin microbeads. We exposed ephyrae of Aurelia coerulea to two treatments, aged microbeads and Artemia nauplii that had ingested microbeads. We found that the ephyrae ingested 35 times more microbeads via trophic transfer than by direct ingestion. In the second experiment, medusae of A. coerulea were exposed to virgin microbeads and microbeads in seawater under a 12/12 light/dark cycle or constant darkness. Ingestion rates of microbeads from the light incubation were greater than those from the dark incubation or virgin microbeads, suggesting the likely presence of photosynthetic organisms in biofilms from the light incubation increased the palatability of the microbeads and promoted their ingestion.
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Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.