Effect of suspended microplastics on larval swimming speed of the cold-water scleractinian coral of Desmophyllum pertusum

We report the results of a short-term experiment testing the effects of microplastics (MP) on the larvae of the cold-water coral Desmophyllum pertusum (syn. Lophelia pertusa). The experiment was conducted at the Tjärnö Marine Laboratory Facilities (University of Gothenburg, Sweden). To simulate MP p...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sire de Vilar, Anaïs, Carreiro-Silva, Marina, Rakka, Maria, Pham, Christopher Kim, Pereira, João Miguel, Strömberg, Susanna M, Larsson, Ann I
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: PANGAEA 2024
Subjects:
ROV
Online Access:https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.964198
https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.964198
Description
Summary:We report the results of a short-term experiment testing the effects of microplastics (MP) on the larvae of the cold-water coral Desmophyllum pertusum (syn. Lophelia pertusa). The experiment was conducted at the Tjärnö Marine Laboratory Facilities (University of Gothenburg, Sweden). To simulate MP pollution, we used 6 μm yellow-green fluorescent polystyrene microbeads (catalog no: 17156, Polysciences). The experimental design consisted of three treatments: control treatment with (1) no MP addition (0 MP/mL), (2) addition of 1000 pristine MP/mL, and (3) addition of 1000 biofouled MP/mL. Larvae were exposed to the different treatments in 75 mL culture flasks mounted on a rotating plankton wheel to keep sediments in suspension. After a 24-hour period, the potential impact of MP on larval swimming speed was analyzed using image analysis software (Meijering et al. 2012).