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Plastics and Fish Don't Mix: Potential Effects of Microplastics on Juvenile Fathead Minnows
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Researchers studied how microplastic beads accumulate in the digestive tracts of juvenile fathead minnows after 1-day and 10-day exposures, finding that plastic particles are retained in the gut, which may reduce growth and increase mortality in this widely-used freshwater indicator species during critical early development.
There is limited data on the effects of microplastics contamination on fathead minnows during the critical early-stages of development; this is a concern because microplastics are becoming an increasingly large threat to aquatic environments.Since the 1940s, mass production of plastics has steadily increased with roughly one third (on average) of the plastic in use being recycled.Studies have recorded an estimate of 5.25 trillion particles of plastic weighing 268.940 tons in total that have ended up in the water system, accumulating largely in closed bays, gulfs, and seas.Microplastic particles are polluting aquatic ecosystems around the world and when ingested by aquatic biota they are potential threats to their health by contamination and may lead to leaching of chemical pollutants in the organism's tissue.Recent research on microplastics have focused on marine ecosystems with a lack of research for freshwater ecosystems.Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the potential effects of microplastics on the digestive tracts of juvenile fathead minnows.In this two-part study, two kinds of microbeads were integrated into the diets of juvenile fathead minnows after a one day and a 10-day exposure period, the juvenile fathead minnow's digestive tracts were dissected and the total number of microplastics remaining in their digestive tracts counted.The average number of plastics present in each exposure period were taken and were compared to one another for further analysis.Higher numbers of retained microplastics in the digestive tract may result in decreased growth rates, higher mortality rates among populations, or increased leaching of chemicals into the organism's tissues.This study provides insight on how microplastics may be affecting this indicator species through their early stages of development with the ambition to further understand their effects.
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Larval fathead minnows were exposed to polyethylene microbeads of two size ranges (63–75 μm and 125–150 μm) and the study found that smaller particles were consumed more readily, excretion was slower for smaller sizes, and body shape influenced consumption rates. The results show that fish particle uptake is size-dependent and that ingested microplastics may persist longer than previously thought.
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This study found no evidence that microplastic polyethylene microspheres affected the feeding or growth of larval fathead minnows at the concentrations tested. The results suggest that not all microplastic exposures produce measurable harm in fish larvae, and that effect magnitude may depend strongly on particle concentration and type.
Impacts to Larval Fathead Minnows Vary between Preconsumer and Environmental Microplastics
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Researchers found that impacts on larval fathead minnows differed significantly between preconsumer laboratory microplastics and environmentally collected microplastics, demonstrating that studies using commercially purchased uniform microplastics may not accurately predict real-world effects of the heterogeneous mixture found in nature.
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