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Multiple impacts of microplastics can threaten marine habitat-forming species

Microplastics are recognised as a potential global threat to marine ecosystems, but the biological mechanisms determining their impact on marine life are still largely unknown. Here, we investigated the effects of microplastics on the red coral, a long-lived habitat-forming organism belonging to the...

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Autores principales: Corinaldesi, Cinzia, Canensi, Sara, Dell’Anno, Antonio, Tangherlini, Michael, Di Capua, Iole, Varrella, Stefano, Willis, Trevor J., Cerrano, Carlo, Danovaro, Roberto
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8010021/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33785849
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-01961-1
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author Corinaldesi, Cinzia
Canensi, Sara
Dell’Anno, Antonio
Tangherlini, Michael
Di Capua, Iole
Varrella, Stefano
Willis, Trevor J.
Cerrano, Carlo
Danovaro, Roberto
author_facet Corinaldesi, Cinzia
Canensi, Sara
Dell’Anno, Antonio
Tangherlini, Michael
Di Capua, Iole
Varrella, Stefano
Willis, Trevor J.
Cerrano, Carlo
Danovaro, Roberto
author_sort Corinaldesi, Cinzia
collection PubMed
description Microplastics are recognised as a potential global threat to marine ecosystems, but the biological mechanisms determining their impact on marine life are still largely unknown. Here, we investigated the effects of microplastics on the red coral, a long-lived habitat-forming organism belonging to the Corallium genus, which is present at almost all latitudes from shallow-water to deep-sea habitats. When exposed to microplastics, corals preferentially ingest polypropylene, with multiple biological effects, from feeding impairment to mucus production and altered gene expression. Microplastics can alter the coral microbiome directly and indirectly by causing tissue abrasions that allow the proliferation of opportunistic bacteria. These multiple effects suggest that microplastics at the concentrations present in some marine areas and predicted for most oceans in the coming decades, can ultimately cause coral death. Other habitat-forming suspension-feeding species are likely subjected to similar impacts, which may act synergistically with climate-driven events primarily responsible for mass mortalities.
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spelling pubmed-80100212021-04-16 Multiple impacts of microplastics can threaten marine habitat-forming species Corinaldesi, Cinzia Canensi, Sara Dell’Anno, Antonio Tangherlini, Michael Di Capua, Iole Varrella, Stefano Willis, Trevor J. Cerrano, Carlo Danovaro, Roberto Commun Biol Article Microplastics are recognised as a potential global threat to marine ecosystems, but the biological mechanisms determining their impact on marine life are still largely unknown. Here, we investigated the effects of microplastics on the red coral, a long-lived habitat-forming organism belonging to the Corallium genus, which is present at almost all latitudes from shallow-water to deep-sea habitats. When exposed to microplastics, corals preferentially ingest polypropylene, with multiple biological effects, from feeding impairment to mucus production and altered gene expression. Microplastics can alter the coral microbiome directly and indirectly by causing tissue abrasions that allow the proliferation of opportunistic bacteria. These multiple effects suggest that microplastics at the concentrations present in some marine areas and predicted for most oceans in the coming decades, can ultimately cause coral death. Other habitat-forming suspension-feeding species are likely subjected to similar impacts, which may act synergistically with climate-driven events primarily responsible for mass mortalities. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-03-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8010021/ /pubmed/33785849 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-01961-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Corinaldesi, Cinzia
Canensi, Sara
Dell’Anno, Antonio
Tangherlini, Michael
Di Capua, Iole
Varrella, Stefano
Willis, Trevor J.
Cerrano, Carlo
Danovaro, Roberto
Multiple impacts of microplastics can threaten marine habitat-forming species
title Multiple impacts of microplastics can threaten marine habitat-forming species
title_full Multiple impacts of microplastics can threaten marine habitat-forming species
title_fullStr Multiple impacts of microplastics can threaten marine habitat-forming species
title_full_unstemmed Multiple impacts of microplastics can threaten marine habitat-forming species
title_short Multiple impacts of microplastics can threaten marine habitat-forming species
title_sort multiple impacts of microplastics can threaten marine habitat-forming species
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8010021/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33785849
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-01961-1
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