How Do Microplastics Impact Aquatic Environments? | Exploring The Current Plastic Crisis
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2023
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How do emerging pollutants such as microplastics and pesticides affect aquatic ecosystems? Ecotoxicologist Susanne M. Brander joins the podcast today to discuss her work on this poignant topic of research…
Susanne is an Associate Professor at Oregon State University in the College of Agricultural Sciences, in the Fisheries and Wildlife Department, and at the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station.
In addition to this, she is also an adjunct member of the OSU Environmental and Molecular Toxicology Department, a part of the OSU Marine Studies Initiative – and is affiliate faculty in the Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing.
In this episode, Susanne fills us in on:
- The two different ways that her team researches microplastics.
- The types of plastics that scientists are finding in ocean waters, and where they may come from.
- Where her research lab draws her samples from.
- How long it takes for certain plastics to degrade.
To find out more about Susanne and her work, click here now!
Episode also available on Apple Podcast: http://apple.co/30PvU9C
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | My research focus is primarily on aquatic ecotoxicology, so thinking about toxicology, but also |
| 0:07.6 | integrating ecology into our work and into our research. And one of my focus is now on micro and |
| 0:14.7 | nanoplastics in addition to other contaminants of emerging concern and their effects mostly on |
| 0:20.7 | coastal organisms, but we also do a little bit of work in in freshwater and other |
| 0:26.3 | environmental matrices too. So we research microplastics on two different fronts. On one front |
| 0:32.5 | we're looking at a currents and so we're interested in where microplastics are ending up, how much |
| 0:39.3 | is ending up in different compartments, different ecosystems, different types of biota or sample types. |
| 0:46.2 | We've even started looking at bio solids to try to better understand the fate of microplastics |
| 0:53.3 | in wastewater treatment and then how those plastics are then getting kind of reapplied and |
| 0:58.4 | reintroduced to the environment. Forget frequently asked questions. Common sense, common knowledge, |
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| 1:29.1 | Here come the geniuses. This is the Finding Genius Podcast with Richard Jacobs. |
| 1:38.5 | Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius Podcast, now part of the Finding Genius |
| 1:43.0 | Foundation. I have Suzanne Brander. She is an associate professor at Oregon State University, |
| 1:48.4 | a part of the Fisheries Wildlife and Conservation Sciences Department, also part of the coastal |
| 1:53.5 | Oregon Marine Experiment Station, and the environment's own molecular toxicology department |
| 1:58.7 | as an adjunct professor as well. So we're going to talk about pollutants such as nanoplastics |
| 2:03.8 | pesticides and how they affect the aquatic ecosystem. Suzanne, thanks for coming. |
| 2:09.2 | Thank you so much for having me today. It's great to be here. |
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