Effects of different types of primary microplastics on early life stages of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

Abstract

Plastic pollution is recognized as serious threat to aquatic organisms. The aim of this research was to determine the effect of environmentally realistic concentrations of various microplastics (MPs) on survival, growth, development and induction of endocrine, geno- and cytotoxic responses in the early life stages of rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss. Fish were exposed for 69-days, from embryos at eyed-stage to mobile yolk-sac larvae, to pre-production pellets (3000 μm; polystyrene - PS and polyethylene terephthalate - PET). Additionally, since salmonid larvae are particularly exposed to light polymers after swimming up from the bottom, fish were also treated with PE microspheres (150-180 μm; polyethylene - PE) for both long (69-days, from embryos at eyed-stage) and short period (29 days, from larvae 3 weeks after hatching) to test the development stage-related effect on the growth parameters and fitness. Hatching success, rate and the survival of larvae did not differ among treatments. Although some alterations were found in the length gain after the long-term exposure and in the yolk-sac exhaustion rate in all PE treatments, the final size of larvae did not differ from the respective controls. PE-treated larvae have shown elevated corticosterone concentrations being significantly higher in fish exposed from the embryo stage. It was indicated for the first time that mobile yolk-sac larvae ingested MPs (up to 24% of larvae contained microspheres). No changes were recorded in cytotoxicity endpoints in any of the treatments, but exposure to PS pellets resulted in significantly higher frequencies of genotoxicity endpoints compared to the control treatment. This effect and aforementioned alterations in PE-treated larvae might result from the exposure to toxic MPs leaches. The fact that selected PAHs' levels reached the highest values in PS pellets and PE microspheres must be underlined.

Keywords: Corticosteroids; Cytogenetic damage; Fish larvae; Growth rate; Hatching; Microplastics.