Petroleum-based and biodegradable microplastics alter tissue structure and fecundity in the eastern mudsnail (<i>Ilyanassa obsoleta</i>)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Microplastics are hazardous to aquatic life. Most experiments focus on the effects of a single type of microbead, while in the environment, organisms are exposed to irregularly shaped fragments belonging to several chemical groups. The effects of biodegradable plastics are unknown. We tested the effects of mixed-source (MS) petroleum-based and biodegradable (polylactic acid, PLA) microplastics on the intertidal eastern mudsnail, Ilyanassa obsoleta (Say, 1822), a benthic grazer. MS plastics were collected from local coastal areas (polystyrene, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride and polyethylene terephthalate, combined) and were tested at three exposures, including one similar to concentrations found locally (2250 particles/kg sediment). Plastics were milled to be similar in size to the biofilm–sediment mix provided to the snails as food (32.94 µm2 for sediment, 137.99 µm2 for MS, and 31.16 µm2 for PLA). Locally relevant exposures of MS microplastics disrupted digestive gland histology, while extreme exposures additionally increased the number of hemocytes and reduced fecundity. Effects of PLA were similar to those of MS microplastics, at the extreme exposure tested here. These results indicate that both petroleum-based and biodegradable microplastics disrupt the structure of the digestive gland and that environmentally relevant exposures induce “hidden” tissue-level changes that are invisible without specialized techniques.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".