Polystyrene nanoplastics affect growth and microcystin production of Microcystis aeruginosa
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Polystyrene nanoplastics affect growth and microcystin production of Microcystis aeruginosa Xiaowei Zheng 1 & Yuan Yuan 1 & Yanyao Li 1 & Xianglin Liu 1 & Xiangrong Wang 1 & Zhengqiu Fan 1 Received: 13 October 2019 / Accepted: 3 August 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Nanoplastics are widely distributed in freshwater environments, but few studies have addressed their effects on freshwater algae, especially on harmful algae. In this study, the effects of polystyrene (PS) nanoplastics on Microcystis aeruginosa (M. aeruginosa) growth, as well as microcystin (MC) production and release, were investigated over the whole growth period. The results show that PS nanoplastics caused a dose-dependent inhibitory effect on M. aeruginosa growth and a dose-dependent increase in the aggregation rate peaking at 60.16% and 46.34%, respectively, when the PS nanoplastic concentration was 100 mg/L. This caused significant growth of M. aeruginosa with a specific growth rate up to 0.41 d−1 (50 mg/L PS nanoplastics). After a brief period of rapid growth, the tested algal cells steadily grew. In addition, the increase in PS nanoplastics concentration promoted the production and release of MC. When the PS nanoplastic concentration was 100 mg/L, the content of the intracellular (intra-) and extracellular (extra-) MC increased to 199.1 and 166.5 μg/L, respectively, on day 26, which was 31.4% and 31.1% higher, respectively, than the control. Our results provide insights into the action mechanism of nanoplastics on harmful algae and the potential risks to freshwater environments. Keywords Polystyrene nanoplastic . Microcystis aeruginosa . Microcystin . Aggregation rate . Photosynthetic activity . Dose-dependent toxicity
Introduction In recent decades, in-depth research has been conducted into the problem of plastic pollution in aquatic environments, which has aroused widespread concern (Wang et al. 2019). Due to the lightweight nature of plastic, it is easily spread by wind and ocean currents across vast distances. Additionally, these plastic particles can break down into smaller sizes due to exposure to sunlight, wind, water, and other environmental
Responsible editor: Vitor Manuel Oliveira Vasconcelos Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10388-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Xiangrong Wang [email protected] * Zhengqiu Fan [email protected] 1
Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
conditions (Peng et al. 2018). Nanoplastics are commonly defined as plastics with at least one dimension less than 1 μm (Lin et al. 2019a). Some reports have claimed that nanoplastics have more significant harm because they can spread widely with water and air currents or be ingested by organisms causing potential toxicity to biota (Besseling et al. 2014; Liu et al. 2020; Zhang et al. 2018b). Polystyrene (PS) nanoplastics have bee
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