Terrestrial Isopods Generate Microplastics from Low-Density Polyethylene Without Effects on Survival
Bibliographic record
Abstract
With concern growing regarding the impact of microplastics (MPs) on terrestrial ecosystems, it is important to assess the role invertebrates may play in the fate of MPs within these ecosystems. Commonly, MPs enter these environments through improperly discarded waste or the application of treated biosolids and/or wastewater on agricultural soils. The present study investigated whether three species of terrestrial isopod (Porcellio scaber, Porcellio laevis, and Porcellionides pruinosus) ingest plastic debris and generate MPs during exposures varying from 24 h to 14 days and whether this may have an adverse effect on their health. Test vessels were designed to expose isopods to plastic fragments in the form of polyethylene plastic foam. Isopods were exposed to plastic that was either (1) pristine, or (2) weathered in a soil and water solution prior to incorporation in test vessels. When exposed to weathered polyethylene, all three species generated MPs (minimum-maximum size values for all durations inclusive: P. laevis = 114-1673 µm, P. scaber = 99-1635 µm, P. pruinosus = 85-1113 µm) through the consumption of macroplastic fragments with no observed impact on their health. In the shorter-duration exposures, the number of MPs generated by the isopod species in the present study was highly variable between experimental vessels (minimum-maximum generated MPs for 14-day exposure: P. laevis = 25-420, P. scaber = 50-583, P. pruinosus = 48-311). However, as the exposure durations increased, there was a clear trend of increasing MP generation, indicating that the isopods continued to consume the plastic fragments as long as the surface was weathered. A significant difference in the size of generated MPs was observed as well, with smaller isopod species generating smaller MP fragments on average. The results of the present study confirm that certain species of isopod can contribute to the generation of MPs, which constitutes an additional pathway of MP exposure to soil ecosystems. Environ Toxicol Chem 2024;43:784-792. © 2023 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.
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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".