TY  - JOUR
A1  - Weber, Annkatrin
A1  - Jeckel, Nina
A1  - Wagner, Martin
T1  - Combined effects of polystyrene microplastics and thermal stress on the freshwater mussel Dreissena polymorpha
T2  - The science of the total environment
N2  - Human-induced changes in the environment have increased the number of stressors impacting aquatic organism. In the light of climate change and plastic pollution, thermal stress and microplastics (MP) have become two of the most intensively studied stressors in aquatic ecosystems. Previous studies, however, mostly evaluated the impacts of thermal and MP stress in isolation, thereby neglecting joint effects.
To examine the combined effects of both, we exposed the freshwater mussel Dreissena polymorpha to irregular polystyrene MP (6.4, 160, 4000, 100,000 p mL−1) at either 14, 23 or 27 °C for 14 days and analyzed mortality, mussel activity and clearance rate, energy reserves, oxidative stress and the immunological state. Further, we exposed the mussels to diatomite (natural particle equivalent, 100,000 p mL−1) at each of the three water temperatures to compare MP and natural particle toxicity.
An increase in water temperature has a pronounced effect on D. polymorpha and significantly affects the activity, energy reserves, oxidative stress and immune function. In contrast, the effects by MP are limited to a change in the antioxidative capacity without any interactive effects between MP and thermal exposure. The comparison of the MP with a diatomite exposure revealed only limited influence of the particle type on the response of D. polymorpha to high concentrations of suspended particles.
The results indicate that MPs have minor effects on a freshwater mussel compared to thermal stress, neither alone nor as interactive effect. Limited MP toxicity could be based on adaptation mechanism of dreissenids to suspended solids. Nonetheless, MP may contribute to environmental impacts of multiple anthropogenic stressors, especially if their levels increase in the future. Therefore, we suggest integrating MP into the broader context of multiple stressor studies to understand and assess their joint impacts on freshwater ecosystems.
KW  - Energy reserves
KW  - Oxidative stress
KW  - Immune function
Y1  - 2020
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/54730
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-547304
SN  - 1879-1026
SN  - 0048-9697
N1  - © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
VL  - 718
IS  - Art. 137253
SP  - 1
EP  - 9
PB  - Elsevier Science
CY  - Amsterdam [u. a.]
ER  -