C. elegans ingest microplastics. This study found the plastics had no impact on their development.

Ella Stainton

Overview

Microplastics are the most prevalent type of artificial debris in most waterways. There is little knowledge about the effect microplastics have on organisms. This project evaluated the effect of microplastics on the development and lifespan of C. elegans. This model organism was selected because C. elegans are non-parasitic, non-hazardous, transparent, and share a large number of genes with humans. In this investigation, wild-type C. elegans were exposed to fluorescent plastic microbeads ranging in size from 1-5µm to determine if the worms would ingest them and what affects the beads would have on reproduction and development. We hypothesized that: 1) C. elegans will ingest the microplastics and 2) C. elegans exposed to the microplastics will develop twice as fast through their larval stages. L3/L4 worms were added to plates with or without microplastics and allowed to reproduce. The eggs and larvae were then counted three times a day and their stages of development were recorded until those worms became reproductive adults. Fluorescent microscopy showed the presence of microplastics in the digestive tract of the worms, confirming the ingestion of microplastics and supporting the first hypothesis. The data did not indicate an effect of microplastics ingestion on the development of C. elegans, and therefore the second hypothesis was not supported. This experiment will be repeated to reduce variation within control and experimental groups.

From the student

Plastics are everywhere. They can be found in the water coming out of your faucet and even in the vegetables you eat! Without knowing it, humans are consuming plastics all the time. Not a lot is known about the affects so that is why I did my project! While I found evidence that the organisms actually DID consume the microplastics (confirmed by fluorescent microscopy) I did not find sufficient evidence to conclude whether the plastics changed to their developmental stages. I hope to continue investigating this topic by gathering much more data and be able to draw conclusions in the future.

From the student

From a very young age science has been a part of my life because both of my parents were high school science teachers. On days I did not have school I would go play in their classrooms and marvel at all of the work and chemicals. I have always been curious about it. In fifth grade I got the opportunity to enter my first science fair. The image on the second slide is me at that science fair. My project looked at the emotions of my friends while they read fairy books.

After that I took a break from science for two years until in seventh grade when my school did a science research semester and I loved every second of the experience. It made me want to do more research. That summer I took a course at the New England Aquarium on Marine Biology. The third slide is an image of me on the last day of that program. A combination of these two things led me to research salinity in eight and ninth grade. I went to the state science fair both of these years and one of those years I won a one week summer program between eighth grade and ninth grade at the New Hampshire Academy of Science. The experience was incredible! This year I applied for the three week Summer Research Intensive. All of my former interests combined into this year's project with microplastics. All of my hard work over the summer and school year paid off and now I am here continuing my story with being inducted as an AJAS Fellow.