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Laboratory evaluation of floating marine plastic debris as a potential vector for transportation of the harmful benthic dinoflagellate Fukuyoa koreansis

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Abstract

Marine plastic debris (MPD) can significantly impact marine ecosystems because it can function as a dispersal vector for organisms, including toxic and alien species. We performed laboratory experiments to assess the possible function of MPD as a dispersal vector for the harmful epiphytic dinoflagellate Fukuyoa koreansis. Specifically, we monitored growth of these cells under 6 conditions: no MPD (control; with or without agitation), with polyethylene (PE) film (sheet-like MPD; with or without agitation), and with polypropylene (PP) rope (cylindrical MPD; with or without agitation). Growth without agitation was not significantly different between experimental groups (p > 0.05, χ2 = 0.228, Kruskal-Wallis test), indicating that the presence of MPDs had no significant effect on growth of F. koreansis under non-agitating conditions. After 15 days, growth without MPD was 25-fold greater without agitation than with agitation (150 ± 42 cells mL-1 vs. 6 ± 1 cells mL-1). When grown with both floating MPDs and agitation, 78 ± 1 % of the cells were attached to the MPD, which was 4-times greater than when they were grown without agitation. These results suggest that MPD or another attachment substrate is essential for the growth of F. koreansis in an unstable water mass, and that MPD may provide a habitat or shelter for F. koreansis and thereby function as a dispersal vector for this harmful epiphytic dinoflagellate.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This research was supported by and the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) [PEA0014; Development of Technology for Impact Assessment of Marine Plastic Debris on Marine Ecosystem] and a grant (20163MFDS641) from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety of Korea. This research was also supported by ‘Land/Sea-based input and fate of microplastics in the marine environment’ of Korea Institute of Marine Science & Technology Promotion (KIMST) funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Republic of Korea (no. 20220357).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Risk Assessment Research Center, KIOST (Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology), Geoje, 53201, Republic of Korea

    Young Kyun Lim, Minji Lee & Seung Ho Baek

  2. Department of Ocean Science, University of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 34113, Republic of Korea

    Young Kyun Lim & Seung Ho Baek

  3. Department of Ocean Environmental Sciences, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, 34134, Republic of Korea

    Seongjin Hong

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  1. Young Kyun Lim
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  2. Minji Lee
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  3. Seongjin Hong
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  4. Seung Ho Baek
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Contributions

Young Kyun Lim: Conceptualization; Experiment; Formal analysis; Writing original draft; Visualization, MinJi Lee: Experiment; Visualization, Seong Jin Hong: Writing- review & editing; Validation, Seung Ho Baek: Conceptualization; Funding acquisition; Writing- review & editing; Validation

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Correspondence to Seung Ho Baek.

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Lim, Y.K., Lee, M., Hong, S. et al. Laboratory evaluation of floating marine plastic debris as a potential vector for transportation of the harmful benthic dinoflagellate Fukuyoa koreansis. J Appl Phycol 34, 2515–2521 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-022-02804-0

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