An international study, led by the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station in collaboration with the British Universities of Exeter and Queen Mary and the University of Barcelona, published in the Chemosphere journal, entitled “Developmental toxicity of pre-production plastic pellets affects a large swathe of invertebrate taxa”, shows the “potentially catastrophic effects” of rising levels of plastics in the ocean on a wide-range of species. The research was funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship assigned to Dr Eva Jimenez-Guri at the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station.
In particular, the study showed that ten species are extremely at risk, spanning all major groups (superphyla) of ocean animals. The main process affected was morphogenesis – an organism developing its shape – and shapeless embryos cannot survive.
“The species we examined went wrong in different ways. Some failed to make a shell or a notocord, some failed to form proper bilateral features, some just stopped developing after a few rounds of cell division. They all failed to make a viable embryo,” said first study author, Dr Jimenez-Guri. The same situation was also observed in the species that reproduce asexually by regeneration (splitting).
The study also examined the toxic effects of plastic samples collected from beaches. High concentrations were found to affect the development of molluscs, sea urchins, sea stars and sea squirts. Plastics contain a complex variety of potentially harmful components, including zinc in this case, which are slowly released when they reach the water, thus affecting the life of these species in the long term.
