Effects of TWP on Daphnia magna

This topic is researched by students Amelia Meneses, Bridget Atland and Samantha Funk. The project includes a series of acute toxicity tests that expose Daphnia magna to various amounts Tire Wear Particles (TWP). The purpose of this project is to observe and analyze the effect that TWPs have on Daphnia magna mobility, sugar uptake and behavior under 24-hour and 48-hour exposures.

What Have We Learned?

By studying Daphnia Magna response to various amounts of TWP particles we found...

Under both 24-hr and 48-hr toxicity tests the number of mobile Daphnia decreased as the amount of TWPs increased (See Figure 1)
We found no evidence of TWPs affecting sugar uptake as no Daphnia took up sugar in the 48-hr tests and only 2 Daphnia in the control group took up sugar in the 24-hr tests.
Through Imaging we have learned that the TWP adhere or stick the the D.magna body.
Through use of Ethovision video software, we have found that D.magna have larger average distances moved when exposed to TWP (figure 2)

Graphs of Daphnia Research

Figure 1: The number of immobilized immature daphnia magna when 30 subjects were exposed to the treatment for 48 hour exposure tests

Figure 2: The average distance moved (cm) during 1 minute trials, after daphnia were exposed to treatments for 48-hours