Are microplastics impacting shellfish?

Methods

Summary

Live oysters will be collected off of the project site shoreline and transported in a sealed, metal cooler to a controlled lab setting. In a closed and controlled environment, oysters will be opened and examined for microplastics. If found, microplastics will be placed into a sealed, metal container and sent for resin analysis and identification at our partner lab in the UK. All tissue will be packaged into a sealed, non-plastic and leachate safe container and sent for chemical analysis to another partner lab, located in BC, Canada. Two control oysters will be integrated into the project for comparison. This project has assistance from Dr. Clara Manno and Dr. Peter Ross to help ensure techniques and protocols are being appropriately and accurately applied.

Challenges

Challenges we anticipate are transporting the live oysters from their natural environment to a lab setting and having to send the tissue, after examination, to a different lab. There is risk of contaminating the samples during transportation and moving from one environment to the controlled analysis setting. Sealed containers that are as leach-proof as possible will be used to not attempt to reduce any contamination issues and that chemically, do not contain any of the chemicals we'll be testing for. Maintaining an environment that limits the oysters to any airborne microplastics will be prioritized to leave as little room as possible for the results to be contested.

Pre Analysis Plan

Previous research in this area will be reviewed and analyzed with our findings to note if there are similarities and consistencies or not. Comparing oyster tissue that had the presence of microplastic to tissue that did not and the chemical analysis results are what we are most interested in studying/reviewing the outcomes of. The results that we'll gather from this project will not be conclusive evidence as the study and sample size is very small but it should provide some good baseline data as to the resiliency of oysters and how they are being impacted by a certain level of plastic pollution. Photos and microplastic sampling data from the project site will be included in the project review to provide a picture as to the level of contamination this site experiences and the results from the chemical analysis will lend a sense of how, if any, leaching from plastic pollution is directly affecting the safe consumption of oysters in this harvesting which is also a shellfish lease area of the local First Nations' people. This project will give a snapshot into the ecotoxicity that may or may not be occurring in this specific area.

Resin results and chemical analysis data will be reviewed with both PhD mentors to ensure conclusions from the results are being accurately interpreted. Plastic resin results will also be assessed against predominate resins that result from septic systems from plastic clothing/textiles as there are homes in the inlet with these systems actively in place.

A previous study from Vancouver Island University showed the presence of microplastic fibers in many oyster samples that were taken from aquaculture farms in the same inlet as our project site. We know microplastics are present and that oysters are coming into contact with plastic through the pollution that can visibly been seen, both at a micro and macro size, what we are curious to know is, how this level of exposure is affecting the tissue of oysters.