Microplastics—tiny particles generated as plastics weather and fragment—pose a growing threat to ecosystem and human health. A new laboratory study shows these threats extend beyond direct physical or chemical impacts, revealing that the presence of microplastics increases the severity of an important viral fish disease.
Microplastics—tiny particles generated as plastics weather and fragment—pose a growing threat to ecosystem and human health. A new laboratory study shows these threats extend beyond direct physical or chemical impacts, revealing that the presence of microplastics increases the severity of an important viral fish disease.
The lead author on the study, published in Science of the Total Environment, is Dr. Meredith Evans Seeley, who conducted the research as part of her Ph.D. program at William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Joining her as co-authors were VIMS professors Rob Hale, Andrew Wargo, and Wolfgang Vogelbein; W&M professor Patty Zwollo; and VIMS laboratory technician Gaelan Verry.
«Microplastics and pathogens are everywhere,» says Seeley, «but they’re often present at highest concentrations in densely populated aquatic environments such as fish farms. We wanted to explore if microplastics could affect the severity of IHNV infections in aquaculture.» IHNV is a virulent pathogen in salmonid aquaculture, affecting members of the salmon family including rainbow trout, steelhead trout, chinook salmon, and sockeye salmon.
The team wanted to determine whether a «cause-and-effect» might occur between microplastics, virus, and fish mortality. Seeley and colleagues thus exposed aquarium-kept rainbow trout to low, medium, and high concentrations of three different types of microparticles, and then added the IHN virus to half the tanks.
