Shachi Raj & D. K. Paul*
Department of Zoology, Patna University, Patna, Bihar, India
Received : 12th December, 2023 ; Revised : 16th January, 2024
DOI:-https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14062747
Abstract– Pollution of the water bodies caused by microplastics (MPs) is one of the serious environmental issues that gain worldwide attention. MPs ingested by fish accumulates in different tissues of fishes causing toxic effect of MPs on overall health of fish that ultimately impact on human health because fish is an important and cheap source of animal protein in the worldwide. The aims of this study were to examine the ingestion, behavioral changes, tissue accumulation and toxic effects of polystyrene (PS) MPs in juvenile Heteropneustes fossilis fish. Test fish were exposed to different concentration of PS MPs for 10 days and Mortality was monitored. More than 70% mortality was observed after 10 days exposure to 130 μg/L of MPs while 120 μg/L of MPs caused only 60% mortality. 100 μg/L of microplastics dosing resulted in 40% mortality of fish. Sub-acute exposure to PS MPs resulted in 10-day LC50 of 108.01μg/L. Abnormal swimming behavior, erratic movement, decrease in swimming activity, swimming velocity and vertical swimming, gradual increase in resting time, increased breathing rate, decrease in surface visiting frequency and spending most of time in resting state were observed as behavioral changes after exposure of polystyrene microplastics. These findings suggested that Heteropneustes fossilis intake of significant levels of microplastics seriously affected the overall health of fish.
Key words: Microplastics, Pollution, Mortality, Toxicity, Fish, Heteropneustes fossilis
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