Measuring the physiological responses of Pocillopora acuta to biofilmed polyethylene microplastics exposure stress
Microplastics are a prevalent pollutant in today’s environment, particularly in marine ecosystems. These polymers allow the establishment of bacterial biofilms on their surfaces, which lead to the concentration of certain bacterial species on their surface. Corals reside in shallow, coastal regions...
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sg-ntu-dr.10356-1567202023-02-28T16:47:12Z Measuring the physiological responses of Pocillopora acuta to biofilmed polyethylene microplastics exposure stress Tay, Grace Syn Yee Federico Lauro Asian School of the Environment Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore Peter Alan Todd FLauro@ntu.edu.sg, dbspat@nus.edu.sg Science::Biological sciences::Ecology Microplastics are a prevalent pollutant in today’s environment, particularly in marine ecosystems. These polymers allow the establishment of bacterial biofilms on their surfaces, which lead to the concentration of certain bacterial species on their surface. Corals reside in shallow, coastal regions of the ocean, where microplastics have been found to accumulate. They are also suspension feeders which increases their exposure to microplastics. The ingestion of these polymers have been shown to harm the health of corals, resulting in coral bleaching and tissue necrosis. In this project, the relationship between Pocillopora acuta’s exposure to polyethylene tetraphthalate microplastics, both biofouled with Pseudoalteromonas, a widely known symbiotic bacteria with corals, and non-biofouled is examined through a week-long ex-situ experiment, using mini-vortex resuspension tanks. The results of the experiment show a statistically signficant difference between treatments in terms of coral colour (measured with the coral health chart) and Symbiodiniaceae density, which are two common methods in assessing coral health. However, due to the lack of sufficient replicates, the pair-wise post-hoc analyses do not show a statistically significant difference between treatment pairs. Interestingly, the results hint towards inter-colonial differences which may help to explain the differences in stress responses of the corals. Bachelor of Science in Environmental Earth Systems Science 2022-04-23T06:57:46Z 2022-04-23T06:57:46Z 2022 Final Year Project (FYP) Tay, G. S. Y. (2022). Measuring the physiological responses of Pocillopora acuta to biofilmed polyethylene microplastics exposure stress. Final Year Project (FYP), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/156720 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/156720 en application/pdf Nanyang Technological University |
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Science::Biological sciences::Ecology Tay, Grace Syn Yee Measuring the physiological responses of Pocillopora acuta to biofilmed polyethylene microplastics exposure stress |
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Microplastics are a prevalent pollutant in today’s environment, particularly in marine ecosystems. These polymers allow the establishment of bacterial biofilms on their surfaces, which lead to the concentration of certain bacterial species on their surface. Corals reside in shallow, coastal regions of the ocean, where microplastics have been found to accumulate. They are also suspension feeders which increases their exposure to microplastics. The ingestion of these polymers have been shown to harm the health of corals, resulting in coral bleaching and tissue necrosis. In this project, the relationship between Pocillopora acuta’s exposure to polyethylene tetraphthalate microplastics, both biofouled with Pseudoalteromonas, a widely known symbiotic bacteria with corals, and non-biofouled is examined through a week-long ex-situ experiment, using mini-vortex resuspension tanks. The results of the experiment show a statistically signficant difference between treatments in terms of coral colour (measured with the coral health chart) and Symbiodiniaceae density, which are two common methods in assessing coral health. However, due to the lack of sufficient replicates, the pair-wise post-hoc analyses do not show a statistically significant difference between treatment pairs. Interestingly, the results hint towards inter-colonial differences which may help to explain the differences in stress responses of the corals. |
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Federico Lauro |
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Federico Lauro Tay, Grace Syn Yee |
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Final Year Project |
author |
Tay, Grace Syn Yee |
author_sort |
Tay, Grace Syn Yee |
title |
Measuring the physiological responses of Pocillopora acuta to biofilmed polyethylene microplastics exposure stress |
title_short |
Measuring the physiological responses of Pocillopora acuta to biofilmed polyethylene microplastics exposure stress |
title_full |
Measuring the physiological responses of Pocillopora acuta to biofilmed polyethylene microplastics exposure stress |
title_fullStr |
Measuring the physiological responses of Pocillopora acuta to biofilmed polyethylene microplastics exposure stress |
title_full_unstemmed |
Measuring the physiological responses of Pocillopora acuta to biofilmed polyethylene microplastics exposure stress |
title_sort |
measuring the physiological responses of pocillopora acuta to biofilmed polyethylene microplastics exposure stress |
publisher |
Nanyang Technological University |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/10356/156720 |
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1759854311213367296 |