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Chronic and pulse exposure effects of silver nanoparticles on natural lake phytoplankton and zooplankton

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Abstract

The increasing use of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in consumer products raises concerns regarding the environmental exposure and impact of AgNPs on natural aquatic environments. Here, we investigated the effects of environmentally relevant AgNP concentrations on the natural plankton communities using in situ enclosures. Using twelve lake enclosures, we tested the hypotheses that AgNP concentration, dosing regimen, and capping agent (poly-vinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) vs. citrate) exhibit differential effects on plankton communities. Each of the following six treatments was replicated twice: control (no AgNPs added), low, medium, and high chronic PVP treatments (PVP-capped AgNPs added continuously, with target nominal concentrations of 4, 16, and 64 μg/L, respectively), citrate treatment (citrate-capped AgNPs added continuously, target nominal concentrations of 64 μg/L), and pulse treatment (64 μg/L PVP-AgNPs added as a single dose). Although Ag accumulated in the phytoplankton, no statistically significant treatment effect was found on phytoplankton community structure or biomass. In contrast, as AgNP exposure rate increased, zooplankton abundance generally increased while biomass and species richness declined. We also observed a shift in the size structure of zooplankton communities in the chronic AgNP treatments. In the pulse treatments, zooplankton abundance and biomass were reduced suggesting short periods of high AgNP concentrations affect zooplankton communities differently than chronic exposures. We found no evidence that capping agent affected AgNP toxicity on either community. Overall, our study demonstrates variable AgNP toxicity between trophic levels with stronger AgNP effects on zooplankton. Such effects on zooplankton are troubling and indicate that AgNP contamination could affect aquatic food webs.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Strategic Project grant awarded to Trent University, with additional support from Environment Canada, the IISD-Experimental lakes Area and the Provinces of Ontario and Manitoba. We thank Graham Blakelock, Lindsay Furtado, Jonathan Martin, and Nicole Novodvorský for their assistance in the field and laboratory. We thank Chris Metcalfe and Holger Hintelmann for all the insightful discussions throughout this project. In addition, we thank the scientists and staff at the Experimental Lakes Area for their support, guidance and knowledge throughout this study.

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  1. Beth C. Norman

    Present address: Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Michigan State University, Michigan, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental and Life Sciences Graduate Program, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada

    Jennifer L. Vincent

  2. IISD-Experimental Lakes Area, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

    Michael J. Paterson

  3. Department of Biology, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada

    Beth C. Norman, Andrew B. Scott, Paul C. Frost & Marguerite A. Xenopoulos

  4. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA

    Evan P. Gray

  5. Department of Chemistry and Geochemistry, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA

    James F. Ranville

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  1. Jennifer L. Vincent
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Correspondence to Marguerite A. Xenopoulos.

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This research was funded by Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Strategic Project grant awarded to Trent University, with additional support from Environment Canada, the IISD-Experimental lakes Area and the Provinces of Ontario and Manitoba. All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This article does not contain any studies with vertebrate animals performed by any of the authors.

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Vincent, J.L., Paterson, M.J., Norman, B.C. et al. Chronic and pulse exposure effects of silver nanoparticles on natural lake phytoplankton and zooplankton. Ecotoxicology 26, 502–515 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-017-1781-8

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