Work Package 2
Biological Fate of Microplastics & Nanoplastics
Lead: Ronny Blust
Universiteit Antwerpen
Image credit: CNR-IAS.
About
Work Package 2 will investigate, under controlled ecologically-relevant experimental conditions, how specific characteristics of microplastics influence key biological mechanisms in a range of organisms (e.g. zooplankton, copepods, jellyfish, mussels, and benthic fish), such as ingestion, residence time, depuration, and translocation from digestive tracts to other organs. The overall results of WP2 will contribute to defining weights and ecological thresholds for different plastic types, sizes, and shapes useful for the calibration of the Weight of Evidence model in WP6.
Key Tasks
Mesocosm exposures
MPs/NPs ingestion in mesocosm species
Zooplankton behaviour/MPs in food webs
Modulation of zooplankton MPs ingestion
Methods for tracking smallest MPs/NPs
Chemical desorption by intestinal fluids
Species sensitivity distributions (SSDs)
Modelling dynamic exposure conditions