NSF Award
2418255
The Lake Ontario Center for Microplastics and Human Health in a Changing Environment is a five-year effort to help prevent negative human health impacts of microplastics in the context of climate change in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are the largest surface freshwater system in the world and are a critical resource for more than 30 million people. Climate change is impacting the Great Lakes in significant ways, with warming water, decreased pH, and shifting precipitation patterns. At the same time, plastic pollution is accumulating in the lakes, with largely unknown consequences for ecosystem and human health. This Center will address critical understudied changes within the Great Lakes that have significance for human health. Because of the many unknowns about every stage of the plastic cycle, multidisciplinary systems science approaches are needed to advance understanding and inform solutions. When microplastics enter the environment, transformations occur that may impact their bioactivity. Breakdown of plastic debris depends on the physical, chemical, and biological conditions of the lake, all of which are affected by climate changes. Human exposure to microplastics may occur through ingestion, inhalation of airborne particles, and skin contact. Small microplastics are of particular concern because of their potential to enter the body, breech the epithelial barrier, and interact with cells. The Center will be built around 1) three separate but integrated research projects, 2) a common facility on materials and measurement that will serve all three projects, and 3) a Community Engagement Core focused on multidirectional engagement with community partners. The center will engage with a broad and diverse coalition of partners to both conduct community science and promote environmental health literacy. These activities include involving residents in efforts to monitor debris flows, and developing, evaluating, and disseminating outreach materials for audiences including youth, educators, community groups, and policy makers in both urban and rural settings. The project will provide training for postdoctoral research fellows, graduate and undergraduate students. The Center is jointly supported by NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences and by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).<br/><br/>The Center’s research is built around the hypothesis that the interactions between climate change and freshwater plastic pollution will have increasingly negative consequences for human and environmental health. The Materials and Metrology Core will generate ‘virgin’ microplastics and characterize real-world microplastics samples for use by three research projects, while developing novel approaches to facilitate future microplastics and human health research. Project 1 builds on several years of work aimed at understanding the input, transport and fate of anthropogenic debris in the Lake Ontario basin in order to better predict the risk of plastic pollution in Lake Ontario. Informed by these preliminary studies, the team hypothesizes that climate-related factors will increase the delivery of post-consumer plastic to Lake Ontario through increased stormwater runoff, and that projected changes in temperature, pH, and storm intensity will (1) increase leaching and the rate of degradation and formation of secondary microplastics, (2) promote biofilm formation and abundance of pathogenic and antibiotic resistant organisms, and (3) enhance ecotoxicity. The project will measure debris accumulation in the terrestrial (mostly urban) system, measure input to waterways in stormwater, and assess the role of precipitation in debris transport across environments with different surface and population characteristics. Project 2 builds on on-going studies that demonstrate the utility of nanomembrane technology to filter water and concentrate microplastics in the retentate and to sample microplastics from air to facilitate research on the bioavailability of microplastic. The project will evaluate the presence of microplastics in size ranges that can breech epithelial barriers in Lake Ontario water that may contact skin and/or be accidentally ingested and in nearshore air samples to quantify respirable microplastics. Project 3 will leverage the amphibian Xenopus to rigorously assess microplastics biodistribution and accumulation in post-embryonic tadpole tissues, using both virgin and environmentally-derived microplastics, then evaluate the acute and long-term effects resulting from microplastics ingestion on the development of an efficient immune system and antiviral immunity under environmental conditions that mimic those projected to occur with climate change. The team will also use results to identify reliable biomarkers applicable for human studies.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
