Animal Ecology I, Universitaetsstraße 30, 95447 Bayreuth, Germany; BayCEER, Universitaetsstraße 30, 95447 Bayreuth, Germany.
Macromolecolar Chemistry II, Universitaetsstraße 30, 95447 Bayreuth, Germany.
Sci Total Environ. 2022 Nov 15;847:157608. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157608. Epub 2022 Jul 25.
Plastic pollution is considered one of the causes of global change. However, water soluble synthetic polymers (WSSPs) have been neglected so far, although they are used in several industrial, dietary, domestic and biomedical products. Moreover, they are applied in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) as flocculants and coagulant agents. Hence, their presence in the aquatic environment as well as their uptake by aquatic organisms is probable, whereas no data are available regarding their potential adverse effects. Here we show in the freshwater key species D. magna exposed to five different WSSPs life history changes along with an altered level of reactive oxygen species, although acute mortality was not observed. Since daphnids act as keystone species in lake ecosystems by controlling phytoplankton biomass, even sublethal effects such as WSSPs induced changes in life history may result in cascading effects, from lower to higher trophic levels, which in turn could affect the whole food web.
塑料污染被认为是全球变化的原因之一。然而，水溶性合成聚合物（WSSPs）迄今为止一直被忽视，尽管它们被应用于几种工业、饮食、家庭和生物医学产品中。此外，它们还被应用于废水处理厂（WWTPs）中作为絮凝剂和凝结剂。因此，它们有可能存在于水生环境中，并被水生生物吸收，尽管目前还没有关于它们潜在的不良影响的数据。在这里，我们在淡水关键物种 D. magna 中展示了暴露于五种不同 WSSPs 后的生活史变化，以及活性氧水平的改变，尽管没有观察到急性死亡率。由于水蚤通过控制浮游植物生物量在湖泊生态系统中充当关键物种，即使是 WSSPs 引起的生活史变化等亚致死效应也可能导致级联效应，从较低到较高的营养级，进而可能影响整个食物网。
