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The Impact of Polystyrene Microplastics on Filtration Rate in the Marine Copepod Acartia tonsa
Summary
This study tested whether polystyrene microplastic beads affect filtration rate in the marine copepod Acartia tonsa, an ecologically important zooplankton species at the base of marine food webs. Understanding whether microplastics impair feeding in copepods is critical because disruptions to copepod grazing can cascade through entire marine food chains.
Microplastic particles are of increasing environmental concern around the globe and recent studies have shown that these particles are present in the entire water column, thus affecting a range of zooplankton including copepods that have a vital role in the marine food web. This study investigated whether microplastic beads have an effect in the filtration rate in the copepod Acartia tonsa, which was collected outside of Ålabodarna located in Oresund. The copepods were exposed to three different solutions during a period of 48h. One group contained solely 10μm of microplastic beads with a concentration of 130 beads per milliliter, the second one contained only a cultured algae mixture with a concentration of 1300 cells per milliliter and the third group contained both plastic beads and algae with the same concentrations as mentioned above. The amount of particles in every container from each group was counted for at t0, t24 and t48. The results showed no significant difference between the groups in the net change in their filtration rate but indicated that their overall survival decreased when being exposed to microplastics. The study concludes that more research is needed to understand what kind of impacts microplastics might have on the copepods filtration rate.