Kay Critchell, Mia O. Hoogenboom

Effects of microplastic exposure on the body condition and behaviour of
planktivorous reef fish (Acanthochromis polyacanthus)

PLoS ONE 13(3): e0193308.

Abstract

The effect of a pollutant on the base of the food web can have knock-on
effects for trophic structure and ecosystem functioning. In this study
we assess the effect of microplastic exposure on juveniles of a
planktivorous fish (Acanthochromis polyacanthus), a species that is
widespread and abundant on Indo-Pacific coral reefs. Under five
different plastic concentration treatments, with plastics the same size
as the natural food particles (mean 2mm diameter), there was no
significant effect of plastic exposure on fish growth, body condition or
behaviour. The amount of plastics found in the gastro-intestinal (GI)
tract was low, with a range of one to eight particles remaining in the
gut of individual fish at the end of a 6-week plastic-exposure period,
suggesting that these fish are able to detect and avoid ingesting
microplastics in this size range. However, in a second experiment the
number of plastics in the GI tract vastly increased when plastic
particle size was reduced to approximately one quarter the size of the
food particles, with a maximum of 2102 small (< 300μm diameter)
particles present in the gut of individual fish after a 1-week plastic
exposure period. Under conditions where food was replaced by plastic,
there was a negative effect on the growth and body condition of the
fish. These results suggest plastics could become more of a problem as
they break up into smaller size classes, and that environmental changes
that lead to a decrease in plankton concentrations combined with
microplastic presence is likely have a greater influence on fish
populations than microplastic presence alone.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0193308&type=printable

https://drive.google.com/open?id=12DyuiHQPUaS44ibBtQxjhnUkPAc-7YIi

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193308

Supporting information

S1 File. Feeding procedure for the experiments.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193308.s001

(DOCX)

S2 File. Details of the length-weight relationships of the three
clutches.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193308.s002

(DOCX)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hnSyFkmMrOoXa5k3iSkXZ2tWywTAufin
https://drive.google.com/open?id=134Rj67BKLwpCef34sOkXszmQgoD0IZPp