Virgin microplastics are not causing imminent harm to fish after dietary exposure

Date

2018-05-01

Author

Jovanovic, Boris
GOKDAG, Kerem
GÜVEN, Olgac
EMRE, YILMAZ
WHITLEY, Elizabeth M.
Kıdeyş, Ahmet Erkan

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

273
views

0
downloads

Among aquatic organisms, fish are particularly susceptible to ingesting microplastic particles due to their attractive coloration, buoyancy, and resemblance to food. However, in previous experimental setups, fish were usually exposed to unrealistically high concentrations of microplastics, or the microplastics were deliberately contaminated with persistent organic chemicals; also, in many experiments, the fish were exposed only during the larval stages. The present study investigated the effects of virgin microplastics in gilt-head seabream (Sparus aurata) after 45 days' exposure at 0.1 g kg(-1) bodyweight day(-1) to 6 common types of microplastics. The overall growth, biochemical analyses of the blood, histopathology, and the potential of the microplastics to accumulate in gastrointestinal organs or translocate to the liver and muscles were monitored and recorded. The results revealed that ingestion of virgin microplastics does not cause imminent harm to the adult gilt-head seabream during 45 days of exposure and an additional 30 days of depuration. The retention of virgin microplastics in the gastrointestinal tract was fairly low, indicating effective elimination of microplastics from the body of the fish and no significant accumulation after successive meals. Therefore, both the short- and the long-term retention potential of microplastics in the gastrointestinal tract of fish is close to zero. However, some large particles remained trapped in the liver, and 5.3% of all the livers analyzed contained at least one microplastic particle. In conclusion, the dietary exposure of S. aurata to 6 common types of virgin microplastics did not induce stress, alter the growth rate, cause pathology, or cause the microplastics to accumulate in the gastrointestinal tract of the fish.

Subject Keywords

Toxicity, Diet, Histopathology, Fish, Marine litter, Microplastics

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/30696

Journal

MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.03.016

Collections

Graduate School of Marine Sciences, Article

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Spatio-temporal patterns and environmental controls of small pelagic fish body condition from contrasted Mediterranean areas Brosset, Pablo; et. al. (2017-02-01) Small pelagic fish are among the most ecologically and economically important marine fish species and are characterized by large fluctuations all over the world. In the Mediterranean Sea, low catches and biomass of anchovies and sardines have been described in some areas during the last decade, resulting in important fisheries crises. Therefore, we studied anchovy and sardine body condition variability, a key index of population health and its response to environmental and anthropogenic changes. Wide tempor...
A small omnivorous bitterling fish (Acheilognathus macropterus) facilitates dominance of cyanobacteria, rotifers andLimnodrilusin an outdoor mesocosm experiment Yu, Jinlei; Xia, Manli; Kong, Ming; He, Hu; Guan, Baohua; Liu, Zhengwen; Jeppesen, Eri K. (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2020-07-01) Small omnivorous fish often dominate in subtropical shallow lakes, and they may affect the community structure of aquatic organisms on at least two trophic levels. However, in the study of aquatic food webs in subtropical lakes, most ecologists have focused on the effects of large-sized omnivorous species (e.g. common carp), studies of small-sized species being scarce. We conducted a mesocosm experiment with two treatments (fish presence and absence) to examine the effects of a small-sized omnivore, bitterl...
Effects of Crucian Carp (Carassius auratus) on Water Quality in Aquatic Ecosystems: An Experimental Mesocosm Study Huang, Yehui; Mei, Xueying; Rudstam, Lars G.; Taylor, William D.; Urabe, Jotaro; Jeppesen, Erik; Liu, Zhengwen; Zhang, Xiufeng (MDPI AG, 2020-5-19) The presence of omnivorous fish is known to affect aquatic ecosystems, including water quality. The effect, however, depends on the species in question, and our knowledge is limited on the effect of omnivorous crucian carp (Carassius auratus), a common and often the most numerous fish species in eutrophic shallow lakes in China. We conducted a 70-day outdoor experiment in mesocosms with and without crucian carp to examine whether this species adversely affects water quality by increasing the levels of total...
Sediments, not plants, offer the preferred refuge for Daphnia against fish predation in Mediterranean shallow lakes: an experimental demonstration Tavsanoglu, Ulku Nihan; Cakiroglu, Ayse Idil; Erdogan, Seyda; Meerhoff, Mariana; Jeppesen, Erik; Beklioğlu, Meryem (2012-04-01) 1. Different behavioural responses of planktonic animals to their main predators, fish, have been reported from shallow lakes. In north temperate lakes, large-bodied zooplankton may seek refuge from predation among macrophytes, whereas in subtropical lakes, avoidance of macrophytes has been observed. The prevalent behaviour probably depends on the characteristics of the fish community, which in Mediterranean lakes is typically dispersed in both the open water zone and in the littoral, as in temperate lakes,...
Temperature strongly correlates with regional patterns of body size variation in Mediterranean small pelagic fish species Hattab, Tarek; et. al. (2021-01-01) In this study we consider the applicability of Bergmann's rule to the populations of small pelagic fish species in the Mediterranean Sea. Under Bergmann's rule, body size increases with decreasing temperature and increasing latitude. Although this mac-roecological pattern in body sizes is well established for many taxa of endotherms and ectotherms, it does not remain universal, and the proposed mechanisms underlying it are multiple and still lack consensus. Here we explored the occurrence of geographical bo...

Citation Formats

B. Jovanovic, K. GOKDAG, O. GÜVEN, Y. EMRE, E. M. WHITLEY, and A. E. Kıdeyş, “Virgin microplastics are not causing imminent harm to fish after dietary exposure,” MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN, pp. 123–131, 2018, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/30696.