Beyond ingestion : adhesion of microplastics to aquatic organisms

Kalčíková, Gabriela (author)

The interactions of microplastics with aquatic organisms have been studied primarily using animal species, with dietary ingestion being the most important uptake route. However, recent research indicated that microplastics also interact with biota via bioadhesion. This process has been studied in aquatic macrophytes under laboratory conditions where microplastics adhered to their biomass, but monitoring studies also confirmed that microplastic bioadhesion occurs in other species and in the natural environment. Similarly, microplastics adhere to microorganisms, and in the aquatic environment they can be retained by ubiquitous biofilms. This can occur on a natural substrate such as sediment or rocks, but biofilms are also responsible for enhanced bioadhesion of microplastics to other biotic surfaces such as plant surfaces. Adhesion to these large biotic surfaces could influence the abundance and bioavailability of microplastics in the environment. Only few studies have been conducted on the bioadhesion of microplastics to animals, but their results confirmed that bioadhesion may be even greater than particle ingestion by some animals, such as corals or bivalves. However, the ecotoxicological effects are not yet fully understood and the possible transport of microplastics, e.g. adhered to fish or aquatic insects, also needs to be considered. In summary, bioadhesion seems to be an important process for the interactions of microplastics and biota. Neglecting bioadhesion in an environmental context may limit our understanding of the behavior, fate, and effects of microplastics in the aquatic environment.

• Language: English
• Keywords: adsorption, attachment, aquatic ecosystems, interactions, plastic pollution
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.02 - Review Article
• Organization: FKKT - Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: 5 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 258, art. 106480
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-145889
• UDC: 502.51:504.5
• ISSN on article: 0166-445X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.aquatox.2023.106480
• COBISS.SI-ID: 145895683
• Publication date in RUL: 17.05.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Aquatic toxicology
• Shortened title: Aquat. toxicol.
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 0166-445X
• COBISS.SI-ID: 26712832

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: mikroplastika, vodni organizmi, vodni ekosistemi, onesnaževanje, adsorpcija