Increased Temperature and Turbulence Alter the Effects of Leachates from Tire Particles on Fathead Minnow (Pimephales promelas)

Abstract

Increased temperature and turbulence alter the effects of leachates from tire particles on fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas). Environmental Science & Technology, 54(3), 1750-1759.

Assessing the Toxicity of Leachates From Weathered Plastics on Photosynthetic Marine Bacteria Prochlorococcus

“…However, desorption of substances from weathered plastics likely varies for different starting materials, as seen in this study and in previous work with marine copepods which showed simulated weathering (UV) of a variety of plastics resulted in leachates with increased toxicity for some items but unaltered or decreased toxicity for other materials (Bejgarn et al, 2015). Recent lab-based experiments which have begun to explore how certain characteristics of the weathering environment, such as temperature and mechanical stress, can affect leachate toxicity have also indicated that the nature of such changes is complex and product dependent (Kolomijeca et al, 2020).…”

“…While there is now some recognition that plastic pollution may impact marine organisms via leaching of harmful chemicals (Hermabessiere et al, 2017), the effect of weathering on leachate toxicity is still poorly understood. To our knowledge only a few studies have investigated how weathering of plastics affects the toxicity of substances which leach from this material and these have focused on toxicity to eukaryotes rather than to bacteria (Bejgarn et al, 2015;Kedzierski et al, 2018;Gardon et al, 2020;Kolomijeca et al, 2020). In this study, we report that common HDPE and PVC plastic items continue to leach substances following environmental weathering for up to 112-days which can adversely impact Prochlorococcus growth, photosynthesis FIGURE 4 | SYTOX Green stained (i.e., membrane compromised) populations after exposure to different dilutions of weathered HDPE leachates in Prochlorococcus (A-C) MIT9312, (D-F) NATL2A and PVC leachates in Prochlorococcus (G-I) MIT9312, (J-L) NATL2A.…”

“…Laboratory experiments using artificial sunlight (UV irradiation) to look at how simulated weathering affects leachate toxicity found that effects varied for different plastic types, with some plastic products becoming more toxic, others less toxic, and some not changing significantly in their toxicity following UV irradiation (Bejgarn et al, 2015). A recent report from another laboratory experiment also showed temperature and mechanical stress can affect the toxicological impact of tire leachates to minnow embryos, with affects varying between different tire brands (Kolomijeca et al, 2020). Plastic aging experiments performed in marine waters showed that weathering processes involves both adsorption and desorption of different organic and inorganic substances and also found that different changes occur with different plastic items and polymer types (Kedzierski et al, 2018).…”

A common contaminant shifts impacts of climate change on a plant-microbe mutualism: effects of temperature, CO2and leachate from tire wear particles

“…Recent estimates suggest a massive 1 million t/a of tire wear particles enter the environment in the USA, with increasing inputs in recent decades due to mounting vehicle traffic (Wagner et al, 2018). Tire wear particles are the main source of total suspended solids (Göbel et al, 2007), zinc (Councell et al, 2004), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, Boonyatumanond et al, 2007) in urban runoff, and leachate from tires has been linked to acute lethality in coho salmon (Peter et al, 2018) and developmental abnormalities in fathead minnow (Kolomijeca et al, 2020), but has shown milder effects on other organisms (Marwood et al, 2011;Panko et al, 2013;Redondo-Hasselerharm et al, 2018). Since multiple stressors very often underlie "ecological surprises" (non-additive effects e.g.…”

“…Yet for PAHs, microbes may mitigate negative effects: PAHs generally have negative effects on plants, including duckweed (Becker et al, 2002;Zezulka et al, 2013), but may be rapidly degraded by microbes (Heitkamp and Cerniglia, 1987;Haritash and Kaushik, 2009). While zinc and PAHs are most often expected to drive biological effects, leachate from tires contains a complex mixture of compounds (Peter et al, 2018;Kolomijeca et al, 2020;Capolupo et al, 2020) and main effects on responses of organisms are highly varied (Panko et al, 2013;Peter et al, 2018), precluding clear predictions. However, several studies have found greater effects of leachate at higher temperatures (Marwood et al, 2011;Kolomijeca et al, 2020), so we might predict that warming would exacerbate leachate effects on duckweed, microbes, and their fitness correlations.…”