Modeling the Role of Microplastics in Bioaccumulation of Organic Chemicals to Marine Aquatic Organisms. A Critical Review

By A. Koelmans. 2015

185 citations recorded by the source corpus.

It has been shown that ingestion of microplastics may increase bioaccumulation of organic chemicals by aquatic organisms. This paper critically reviews the literature on the effects of plastic ingestion on the bioaccumulation of organic chemicals, emphasizing quantitative approaches and mechanistic models. It appears that the role of microplastics can be understood from chemical partitioning to microplastics and subsequent bioaccumulation by biota, with microplastic as a component of the organisms’ diet. Microplastic ingestion may either clean or contaminate the organism, depending on the chemical fugacity gradient between ingested plastic and organism tissue. To date, most laboratory studies used clean test organisms exposed to contaminated microplastic, thus favouring chemical transfer to the organism. Observed effects on bioaccumulation were either insignificant or less than a factor of two to three. In the field, where contaminants are present already, gradients can be expected to be smaller or even opposite, leading to cleaning by plastic. Furthermore, the directions of the gradients may be opposite for the different chemicals present in the chemical mixtures in microplastics and in the environment. This implies a continuous trade-off between slightly increased contamination and cleaning upon ingestion of microplastic, a trade-off that probably attenuates the overall hazard of microplastic ingestion. Simulation models have shown to be helpful in mechanistically analysing these observations and scenarios, and are discussed in detail. Still, the literature on parameterising such models is limited and further experimental work is required to better constrain the parameters in these models for the wide range of organisms and chemicals acting in the aquatic environment. Gaps in knowledge and recommendations for further research are provided.

Subfields: Biomaterials, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cc5adecace9bb1aeeccbc09cf6c049b7eb8ccaf1

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Citations in the corpus

Contributions of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy in microplastic pollution research: A review (2020, background): “These chemicals, including those incorporated during plastic production (additives), can leach into biological tissues, posing health risk to organisms and bio-accumulating in the food chain (Koelmans, 2015; Gall & Thompson, 2015; Galloway et al., 2017).”
Understanding How Microplastics Affect Marine Biota on the Cellular Level Is Important for Assessing Ecosystem Function: A Review (2019, background): “Increasingly, studies focus on physiological effects of microplastics on animals on an individual scale (Lusher 2015), as microplastics potentially cause cryptic sublethal effects that have to date rarely been investigated (Koelmans 2015).”
Plastic and marine turtles: a review and call for research (2016, background): “These chemicals, and those incorporated during production (such as plasticizers), can leach into biological tissue upon ingestion, potentially causing cryptic sublethal effects that have rarely been investigated (Koelmans, 2015).”
Bioavailability and effects of microplastics on marine zooplankton: A review. (2019, background): “Additionally the large surface area-to-volume ratio of microplastics and hydrophobic properties can lead to accumulation of contaminants on their surfaces including heavy metals and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from the marine environment (Koelmans, 2015).”
Effect of microplastics in water and aquatic systems (2021, background): “Environmental microplastics deteriorate to generate nanoplastics 100 nm, which have virtually unknown plights and toxic properties in comparison with other plastic debris (Koelmans 2015).”
Marine litter as habitat and dispersal vector (2015, background): “The role of ingested microplastics for the transport of contaminants to marine biota may be limited also because of the rapid gut passage of the small particles (Koelmans 2015).”
Deleterious Effects of Litter on Marine Life (2015, background): “Potential chemical impacts from the ingestion of plastic are not exhaustively discussed in this chapter, as chemical transfer and impacts are discussed in more detail in the contributions by Koelmans (2015) and Rochman (2015).”
Microplastics in the Marine Environment: Distribution, Interactions and Effects (2015, background): “Whether microplastics act as vectors depends on the gradient between microplastics and biota lipids (Koelmans 2015).”