Understanding the fate and effects of microplastics in aquatic ecosystems
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
– John Muir
Conducting experiments in a highly controlled setting, like a laboratory, limits the hypotheses one is able to test. Conducting experiments in nature, allows for the exploration of a large number of hypotheses, including those relevant to direct and indirect ecological effects.
Our Team
Meet the researchers on our team. Our team is composed of various professors, students and postdocs across North America.
About Our Work
The pELAstic Project is a multi-collaborator project established in 2019 led by a team of researchers from across North America. Using the unique natural research laboratory at the International Institute for Sustainable Development Experimental lakes Area (IISD-ELA), we are running a series of in-lake limnocorral experiments and a whole ecosystem experiment to better understand the fate, transport and effects of microplastics in aquatic ecosystems.
IISD-ELA, located in Northwestern Ontario in Canada, is one of the world’s most influential freshwater research facilities. It includes a system of 58 lakes used for long-term ecological studies and manipulative whole-lake or in-lake limnocorral experiments. Over the last 50 years, IISD-ELA has provided science needs to address a range of environmental problems ranging from nutrient pollution, emerging contaminants, climate change, and fisheries. Here, we are using IISD-ELA as a platform to conduct environmentally and ecologically relevant experiments that allow us to gain a better understanding of how microplastics affect the structure and function of ecosystems. We aim to help fill key research gaps and provide critical evidence to inform policies aimed at mitigating plastic pollution.
Our overarching objective is to gain a better understanding of the physical and chemical fate of microplastics, and how they impact ecosystems across all levels of biological organization, from molecules to ecosystems. This work will help close important research gaps and inform policies relevant to monitoring, mitigation and risk. Our research questions are to determine:
- The physical, chemical, and biological fate of microplastics in lakes and their watersheds;
- How microplastics impact aquatic ecosystems across all levels of biological organization;
- How ecosystem processes and functions (e.g., nutrient cycling, photosynthesis, primary productivity) are affected by microplastics; and
- The recovery of an exposed ecosystem, including microplastic degradation and transformation.
Our Timeline
Background Contamination: In 2019, we sampled water, sediments and atmospheric deposition from across IISD-ELA to understand background contamination of microplastics.
Limnocorral experiments: In 2021 and 2022 we ran a series of large scale in-lake limnocorral experiments to inform the whole ecosystem experiment, testing hypotheses using different concentrations of microplastics, with and without chemical additives, and in pelagic and littoral ecosystems.
Whole-ecosystem experiment : In 2019 we also began monitoring the baseline conditions of our experimental lake (L378) and our reference lake (L373). This includes water chemistry and populations of different organisms in the lake including phytoplankton, zooplankton, macroinvertebrates, amphibians, and fish. In 2023, we began microplastic additions to L378. Microplastic additions will continue through 2025. The lake will then be monitored to measure recovery for at least five years.
The pELAstic Project 