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Contamination, Uptake and Elimination of Microplastics in Freshwater Mussels
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This study examined the contamination, uptake, and elimination of microplastics in freshwater mussels, extending findings from marine systems to freshwater filter feeders. The research provides baseline data on how microplastics accumulate in freshwater bivalves, which are important bioindicators and food sources.
Each year, millions of tons of plastics are produced worldwide. When accumulated in the environment, plastic debris causes potential impacts and consequences for the ecosystem and biota. These plastic debris when smaller than 5 mm are called microplastics. Studies in marine ecosystems show that microplastics are uptake and easily ingested by organisms, especially the filtering agents. However, little is known about the accumulation and contamination of these microplastics in freshwater mussels. Anodontites trapesialis (Lamark, 1819) and Corbicula fluminea (Muller, 1774) will be exposed in a laboratory experiment to analyze the uptake, ingestion and potential for elimination of microplastics in this study. In a laboratory experiment, polyethylene pellets will be distributed to aquarium with A. trapesialis and C. fluminea for 3, 12, 24, 48, 96, 72, 120, 144, 168 and 192 hours. Each time will be replicated 10 times being 2 controls. The controls will be divided into aquarium with mussel and without microplastic, and aquarium with microplastic and without mussel. This experiment will show the accumulation of microplastics in freshwater mussels over time. It is believed that significant amounts of microplastics will be found in the tissues, faeces and pseudofeaces of both mussel species in treated aquaria when compared to the control. In pacial results, we observed that A. trapesialis accumulate microplastics over the time. The results using Anova of single photon, show this difference between the means of uptake (p-value <0.001). The strength of the relationship from a linear regression also showed that more particles are uptake over time (pvalue = 0,01, R-squared = 0,70 Df = 9).This study will contribute to the knowledge of the accumulation of microplastics in freshwater mussels. Finally, faeces and pseudofaeces analysis is expected to provide a simple method for rapid bioaccumulation analysis of this group.
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This review analyzed studies on microplastic uptake, bioaccumulation, and biological effects in freshwater bivalves, which serve as both pollution sentinels and vectors for microplastic entry into food webs. The authors found consistent evidence for particle accumulation causing physiological stress, while calling for more standardized exposure protocols to improve cross-study comparability.
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Researchers investigated how mussels take up, eliminate, and accumulate high-density polyethylene microplastics smaller than 22 micrometers. They found that mussels cleared microplastics at the same rate as similarly sized food particles, but smaller particles (under 6 micrometers) were retained much longer in the digestive gland. After six days of depuration, about 85 percent of ingested microplastics were eliminated, but 2 to 6 percent remained embedded in digestive tissue, indicating that small microplastics can accumulate in filter-feeding organisms.
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