pELAstic: a whole-ecosystem experiment to understand the fate and effects of microplastics

微塑料在全球范围内无处不在，但我们对其环境命运和影响的了解大多局限于理论模型和实验室实验。据我们所知，我们提出的项目将是第一个此类项目，它将试验性地操纵整个湖泊，在生态系统规模上测试微塑料的影响。这项实验只能在世界著名的国际可持续发展研究所的实验湖地区(IISD-ELA)进行，该地区有省级和联邦立法允许进行全湖实验。IISD-ELA支持现实世界的项目，这些项目提供了从理论、实验室和水箱研究到自然生态系统的关键缺失步骤。在我们团队已经资助和计划的较小规模实验的指导下，这个与环境有关的项目的研究目标是确定1)MPS在湖泊及其流域中的物理、化学和生物命运；2)MPS如何影响各级生物组织的水生生态系统；3)MPS如何影响生态系统的过程和功能，如营养循环和光合作用；以及4)暴露在MPS下的生态系统的恢复，包括MPS如何随着时间的推移分解和/或转化。根植于项目目标，我们建议的研究的预期结果是通过培训不同的HQP来提高MPS的研究能力，填补我们对MPS在水生生态系统中的命运和影响的科学理解方面的知识空白，开发用于MPS及其影响的采样和表征的新工具和协议(旨在满足全球对MPS的标准化/协调方法的需求)，并产生知识，为加拿大及其他地区的风险评估和政策提供信息。

Microplastics (MPs) are globally ubiquitous, yet our understanding of their environmental fate and effects is mostly limited to theoretical models and laboratory experiments. Our proposed project, which to the best of our knowledge would be the first of its kind, is to experimentally manipulate an entire lake, testing the impacts of microplastics at the ecosystem scale. This experiment can only be carried out at the world-renowned International Institute for Sustainable Development's Experimental Lakes Area (IISD-ELA), which has provincial and federal legislation permitting whole-lake experimentation. IISD-ELA enables real-world projects that provide a critical missing step from theoretical, lab, and tank studies to natural ecosystems. Guided by smaller-scale experiments already funded and planned by our team, the research objectives for this environmentally relevant project are to determine 1) the physical, chemical, and biological fate of MPs in lakes and their watersheds; 2) how MPs impact aquatic ecosystems across all levels of biological organization; 3) how ecosystem processes and functions, such as nutrient cycling and photosynthesis, are affected by MPs; and 4) the recovery of an ecosystem exposed to MPs, including how MPs break-down and/or transform over time. Rooted in the program objectives, the expected outcomes of our proposed research are to increase research capacity on MPs through the training of diverse HQP, close knowledge gaps in our scientific understanding of the fate and effects of MPs in aquatic ecosystems, develop new tools and protocols for the sampling and characterization of MPs and their impacts (aimed at addressing the global need for standardization/harmonization of methods to inform monitoring), and generate knowledge to inform risk assessments and policies in Canada and beyond.