AGGREGATION OF MICROPLASTIC BEADS DURING INCUBATION EXPERIMENTS

Abstract

In the last century, plastics have become omnipresent in even the most remote areas on Earth. While research studies are examining the effects of micro and nano plastics on marine organisms, there is still a lot we do not know about the way these particles behave in a marine environment. We gathered data on microplastic bead aggregation patterns during bottle incubation experiments carried out on a slowly rotating plankton wheel. Aggregation was examined pre- and post-incubation (24 hours) for two treatments of phytoplankton and microplastic beads ratios (100% bead and 50% bead:50% phytoplankton). Phytoplankton and microbead abundance and aggregation in each treatment was assessed using a FlowCam. Microplastics aggregated more with other microplastics once they were placed into seawater containing the phytoplankton. The results of this study will provide insight on the behavior of microplastics in marine environments that are continually being accumulated due to our extensive use of plastics. These assorted sizes of plastic clusters will have differentiated impacts on the ingestion of many marine organisms.