Effects of polystyrene microplastics on the fitness of earthworms in an agricultural soil
By Dongdong Cao, Xiao Wang, Xianxiang Luo, Guocheng Liu, Hao Zheng. 2017
226 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Microplastics (MPs) pollution is widespread in the environment, while the effects of MPs on the soil organisms are poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the fitness of earthworms (E. Foetida) exposed to MPs (Polystyrene, 58 μm) in soils at the concentrations of 0, 0.25, 0.5, 1 and 2% (w/w). The results showed that MPs had little effects on the fitness of earthworms under low exposure concentrations (≤ 0.5 % (w/w)), while MPs exposure with high concentrations (i.e., 1% and 2%) significantly inhibited the growth and increased the mortality of earthworms. The results indicated that the MPs pollution in soils have an adverse effect on the fitness of soil organisms, and implied the ecological risk of MPs in terrestrial ecosystems.
Subfields: Biomaterials, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pollution
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c29e3831bd8c556716a6ab8b1cb6a6abe80e9b73
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In Biomaterials
In Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
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Citations in the corpus
- Macro- and micro- plastics in soil-plant system: Effects of plastic mulch film residues on wheat (Triticum aestivum) growth. (2018, background): “Even though there is a growing concern about the microplastic pollution in terrestrial ecosystems, so far there has been no experimental research concerning both macroplastics and microplastics in the soil-plant system and the effects that this could have on plant growth (Cao et al., 2017; Ng et al.”