Impacts of Feeding Diets Contaminated with Polyethylene on the Growth and Health of Yellow Perch
Mentor 1
Dong-Fang Deng
Start Date
16-4-2021 12:00 AM
Description
Plastics such as high-density polyethylene (HDPE) enter waterways and can break into smaller pieces overtime. Exposure to UV radiation and tumbling in marine and freshwater systems can expedite the process resulting in “microplastic” (MP), defined as plastics under 5mm in length. The impacts of MP on the species of fish in the Great Lakes are still not fully understood. Yellow perch are of environmental, economic, and cultural significance in the Midwest. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impacts of HDPE on the growth, survival, and health of yellow perch through a chronic dietary exposure test. Yellow perch (3g average body weight), Perca flavescens, were fed test diets containing HDPE (size of 100-125 micron or 40-45 micron) at levels of 0, 1, 2, or 4 g/100g diet. The fish were raised in an indoor system run with flow-through water at 22ºC. Three tanks of fish (18 fish/tank) were randomly assigned to each test diet. The fish were fed at a rate of 2-3.5% body weight daily for 11 weeks. The results showed that weight gain of fish fed the HDPE diets was significantly (P<0.05) reduced when compared to the weight gain of control group. The ratio of intestine length to whole body length tended to increase in fish fed the diets containing HDPE. The test diets did not lead to different effects on morphological parameters including liver weigh to fish weight ratio, visceral lipid ratio, and condition factor among all treatments (P>0.05). The size of HDPE did not have different impacts on the fish growth. The current results indicate that feeding the fish with 20-35 mg HDPE/100g fish daily adversely influences yellow perch growth under the current test conditions. Analysis on MP accumulation, nutritional composition, and histopathology assay are ongoing and results with be presented at the conference.
Impacts of Feeding Diets Contaminated with Polyethylene on the Growth and Health of Yellow Perch
Plastics such as high-density polyethylene (HDPE) enter waterways and can break into smaller pieces overtime. Exposure to UV radiation and tumbling in marine and freshwater systems can expedite the process resulting in “microplastic” (MP), defined as plastics under 5mm in length. The impacts of MP on the species of fish in the Great Lakes are still not fully understood. Yellow perch are of environmental, economic, and cultural significance in the Midwest. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impacts of HDPE on the growth, survival, and health of yellow perch through a chronic dietary exposure test. Yellow perch (3g average body weight), Perca flavescens, were fed test diets containing HDPE (size of 100-125 micron or 40-45 micron) at levels of 0, 1, 2, or 4 g/100g diet. The fish were raised in an indoor system run with flow-through water at 22ºC. Three tanks of fish (18 fish/tank) were randomly assigned to each test diet. The fish were fed at a rate of 2-3.5% body weight daily for 11 weeks. The results showed that weight gain of fish fed the HDPE diets was significantly (P<0.05) reduced when compared to the weight gain of control group. The ratio of intestine length to whole body length tended to increase in fish fed the diets containing HDPE. The test diets did not lead to different effects on morphological parameters including liver weigh to fish weight ratio, visceral lipid ratio, and condition factor among all treatments (P>0.05). The size of HDPE did not have different impacts on the fish growth. The current results indicate that feeding the fish with 20-35 mg HDPE/100g fish daily adversely influences yellow perch growth under the current test conditions. Analysis on MP accumulation, nutritional composition, and histopathology assay are ongoing and results with be presented at the conference.
