Increasing Levels of Man-made Compounds in Marine Plankton Could Be Used to Track the Influence of Human Activities on Ecosystem Health

Researchers propose that increased levels of man-made chemicals in marine plankton might be used to monitor the influence of human activities on ecosystem health and perhaps explore linkages between ocean pollution and land-based rates of childhood and adult chronic disease.

Marine plankton tell the long story of ocean health

(Photo : FRED TANNEAU/AFP via Getty Images)

"This was a pilot research to assess the feasibility of utilizing archival samples of plankton from the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) Survey to reconstruct historical patterns in marine pollution across place and time," stated senior author Robert K. Naviaux, MD, Ph.D., of the UC San Diego School of Medicine, as per ScienceDaily.

The worrisome increase in pediatric and adult chronic illness that has happened worldwide since the 1980s led them to investigate these novel strategies.

Recent research has highlighted the close relationship between ocean pollution and human health.

Do changes in the plankton exposome (the sum of all exposures over a lifetime) correspond with ecosystem and fisheries health?

The CPR Survey, based in the United Kingdom, is the world's longest-running and most geographically large marine ecological survey.

Since 1931, about 300 ships have traveled over 7.2 million miles towing sample equipment that collects plankton and environmental data in all of the world's oceans, the Mediterranean, Baltic, and North seas, as well as freshwater lakes.

The endeavor, along with other programs, is designed to chronicle and monitor the overall health of the seas, based on the well-being of marine plankton a varied collection of generally microscopic organisms that supply food for many other aquatic animals, ranging from mollusks to fish to whales.

"Marine plankton appears in all ocean habitats," stated co-author Sonia Batten, Ph.D., former Pacific CPR coordinator and current executive secretary of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization.

They form intricate communities that serve as the foundation of the food web, and they play critical roles in preserving the ocean's health and balance.

Plankton has a limited lifespan and is extremely susceptible to environmental changes.

Robert Naviaux, and co-corresponding author Kefeng Li, Ph.D., a project scientist in Naviaux's lab, and colleagues assessed plankton specimens taken from three different locations in the North Pacific at different times between 2002 and 2020, then used a variety of technologies to assess their exposure to various humanmade chemicals, including pharmaceuticals; persistent organic pollutants (POPs), such as industrial chemicals; pesticides; phthalates and plasticizers (chemicals deriving from plastics).

Many of these contaminants have declined in quantity during the last two decades, according to the researchers, but not uniformly and frequently in complex ways.

For example, analyses show that levels of legacy POPs and the common antibiotic amoxicillin have declined significantly in the North Pacific Ocean over the last 20 years, possibly due to increased federal regulation and a decrease in overall antibiotic use in the United States and Canada, but the findings are complicated by concurrent increases in use in Russia and China.

Also Read: Researchers Gather Thousand Marine Micro-organisms Samples to Understand Ocean Plankton and Pollution

Cell Danger Response Of Plankton To Humans

"The objective of CDR is to help protect the cell and jump-start the healing process after harm," Naviaux explained, as per UC San Diego Today.

However, the CDR might become stuck at times. This inhibits the natural healing cycle from being completed, affecting the way the cell responds to the outside world.

When this occurs, cells act as though they are still harmed or in imminent danger, despite the fact that the initial cause of the injury or threat has gone.

Many types of environmental pollutants, trauma, illness, and other types of stress have been shown to delay or obstruct the healing cycle.

The most contaminated samples were collected from nearshore locations that were prone to phenomena such as terrestrial runoff and aquaculture.

There were higher levels and a greater number of differences in these areas.

The findings, according to Naviaux, provide fresh insights into the nature of many chronic illnesses in which stages of the cell danger response (CDR) persist, resulting in persistent symptoms.

For more than a decade, Naviaux and colleagues have argued that mounting evidence suggests that a wide range of diseases and chronic illnesses, from neurodevelopmental disorders like autism spectrum disorder and neurodegenerative disorders like ALS to cancer and major depression, are at least partly the result of metabolic dysfunction that results in incomplete healing, a condition known as CDR.