Does microplastic ingestion dramatically decrease the biomass of protozoa grazers? A case study on the marine ciliate Uronema marinum

Abstract Microplastic debris has become a significant global environmental issue. Yet, the effects on ingestion of microplastics by protozoan grazers—an important link in the microbial loop—are scant. Feeding experiments were conducted with the free-living marine ciliate Uronema marinum grazing on cultured bacteria Pseudoaltermonas sp., exposing them to different concentrations or sizes of polystyrene beads for 96 h. The number of beads decreased during exposure experiments. Under the microplastic influence, the ciliate cells were observed to decrease in abundance, body size, and biomass. It was noted that the ciliate biomass in the highest microplastic density treatment was significantly lower than that in the control (98.1% lower) and that microplastics can be ingested by ciliate protozoa which performed an important role in the transportation of energy across the microbial loop. Moreover, carbon biomass of ciliates exposed to microplastics of different particle diameters decreased significantly compared to the control. However, this effect does not seem to vary depending on microplastic sizes. This study is a first step in providing experimental insight into the feeding relationship between microplastics and marine protozoan grazers. Further research based on components of the microbial loop is needed to explore the impacts of microplastics in marine food webs.