Research Spotlight from the Seattle Aquarium: Microplastics, COVID-19 and Community Science

Jen Lynch, SETAC

A new Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry article, “Temporal variability of microparticles under the Seattle Aquarium, WA: Documenting the global Covid-19 pandemic,” by Lyda Harris and colleagues from the Seattle Aquarium caught our attention, because it captured so much of what made 2020 a challenging year; yet it still framed a fascinating research narrative. What started out as a research project designed to investigate seasonal variation in microparticle (MP) concentrations in Elliott Bay in the Salish Sea in Washington led to findings on the impact of human activity and an interesting conversation about community science.

The Project

The team from the Seattle Aquarium set out to measure seasonal variation in MPs, including microplastics, with the aid of volunteers. They collected samples from water pumped into the aquarium from a depth of about 9 meters approximately once a month from January to July 2019 and bimonthly starting August 2019 for the next year. Then, using a microscope, they segregated MPs by size (300–5,000 m), morphotype and color.

The Findings

There are a variety of variables that impact MP research in aquatic environments – the absence of a single composition that comprehensively defines “microplastic,” the constant change in methodology, and continuously variable conditions in marine environments, including water depth, tides, precipitation and location. It’s no wonder that there is little known about how seasons affect MP loads, and therefore, how they affect local species, including humans. Harris and her team, like the rest of the world, forged forward with work as best they could during the early days of the pandemic, but ultimately, they realized they had to “pivot.” In their words, “After looking at the data and seeing the significant decrease in the presence of microparticles, we shifted our focus. Originally, we were going to look at seasonality, but it became clear that we could not ignore the Covid-19 shutdowns and subsequent absence of tourists.”

Seattle went into lock down on 25 March 2020. The data show a distinct “breakpoint,” 10 April 2020, where the reduction of MP was significant and continued to drop. Prior to the breakpoint, total MP concentration averaged 0.24 ± 0.04 MP L^-1 whereas post breakpoint, total MP concentration averaged 0.05±0.01 MP L^-1 and remained low, a decrease of 81%. So, what changed in those two weeks? There were dramatic reductions in human activity as seen in a reduction in tourists flying into the city (TSA data indicated fewer individuals were being screened at the Seattle-Tacoma airport) and a reduction in the volume of wastewater effluent from three different treatment plants; both metrics of human activity likely have direct impacts on the quantity of marine MP contamination.

Harris warns that it is deceptively easy to look at MP decline in this research and think things are on the mend and to take comfort in the resilience of nature, but she reminds us that the “quantity of single-use plastics increased during COVID. The volume of personal protective equipment and takeout containers, as two examples, skyrocketed. I fully expect to see an uptick in microplastic volume in the future because of the increase in these single-use plastics. While this reveals a good immediate outcome, it is not likely long-term.”

A Community Science Project

The methods section of the paper featured a short note, “some sample days were missed because of a lack of volunteers.” During an interview, Harris talked a bit about what it is like to be reliant upon community scientists for research. She gushed enthusiastically about her volunteers.

“I love working with volunteers! One of the huge prohibitory factors in research is staffing. In academic settings, undergrads often fill this role, and when you are a grad student, you know you have 5–6 years for data collection before you are moving institutions. If you are not in an academic setting, the funding and the person-power often is just not there. The aquarium has focused on training volunteers for collecting data to alleviate both the staffing issue as well as provided valuable research experience to budding marine biologists. You must recognize that you are working with a group that likely has not had formal scientific training. The training for the aquarium is rigorous, and volunteers must make longer time commitments to projects. They often work on a specific area of data collection for a year before moving on to another function. While this sounds grueling at times, it also provides volunteers the opportunity to be deeply involved with projects, gain substantial experience, and even co-author papers, like ours.”

She outlined some pros and cons for working with community scientists. When COVID hit, the volunteers largely dropped their volunteer work; the aquarium went from six trained volunteers to one. However, they picked back up their efforts, and in the recent professional soul searching that has resulted from the pandemic, three volunteers have since decided to dedicate their next career to helping solve the pollution problem.

TL;DR

There were so many interesting angles to this paper, but we loved reading a robust research paper harnessing the efforts of community scientists, working under direction of researchers at a non-profit, during a pandemic that highlighted the impacts of said pandemic.

Author’s contact information: [email protected]