Elsevier

Marine Pollution Bulletin

Volume 95, Issue 1, 15 June 2015, Pages 362-364
Marine Pollution Bulletin

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Impact of cigarette butt leachate on tidepool snails

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.04.004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Cigarettes are the worlds most common personal litter item.

  • However, cigarette butt leachate (CBL) is an untested pollution source in urban marine intertidal zones.

  • We showed that 3 common intertidal snails have high but different lethal and sublethal responses to CBL.

  • Overall, CBL can change community dynamics of intertidal snails.

Abstract

In urban areas, cigarette butts are the most common discarded refuse articles. In marine intertidal zones, they often fall into tidepools. We tested how common intertidal molluscs were affected by butt leachate in a laboratory experiment, where snails were exposed to various leachate concentrations. Mortality was very high, with all species showing 100% mortality at the full leachate concentration (5 butts per litre and 2 h soak time) after 8 days. However, Austrocochlea porcata showed higher mortality than the other 2 species at lower concentrations (10%, 25%) which may affect the relative abundance of the 3 snails under different concentrations of leachate pollution. Also, sublethal effects of leachate on snail activity were observed, with greater activity of Nerita atramentosa than the other 2 species at higher concentrations, suggesting it is more resilient than the other 2 species.

While human health concerns predominate with respect to smoking, we show strong lethal and sublethal (via behavioural modifications) impacts of discarded butts on intertidal organisms, with even closely-related taxa responding differently.

Introduction

Negative anthropogenic effects on biota are prevalent at a range of spatial and temporal scales, but are often more pronounced in urban environments (e.g., Booth and Skene, 2006, Alquezar et al., 2006, Furlan et al., 2013, Morrissey et al., 2013). While the effects of personal litter on organisms have been well studied, the rise of global phenomena such as climate change has somewhat taken the focus off local impacts of pollution. Examples of detrimental impacts of personal litter include choking of waterways and death of seabirds from discarded plastics (see Goudie, 2013).

The most common form of personal litter worldwide is the cigarette butt, with over 4.5 trillion discarded annually (Moerman and Potts, 2011, Novotny and Slaughter, 2014). The strong world focus on the detrimental effects of smoking on human health has not been matched by an understanding of the impact of discarded butts on the natural environment. Micevska et al. (2006) reported strong mortality effects of cigarette leachate on freshwater cladocerans. Slaughter et al. (2011) studied the effects of various forms and concentrations of cigarette butt leachate on several freshwater fish species in aquaria and demonstrated lethal effects at low concentrations. However, sublethal impacts, including those on animal behaviour, have rarely been tested, yet are critical in understanding community dynamics.

Cigarette butts also find their way into the marine environment, particularly in coastal urban areas. If butts are confined to small bodies of seawater, such as tidepools, we may expect effects on fauna. In particular, we predicted strong negative effects on marine molluscs, which respond rapidly to environmental change. Responses can be diverse. For example, where the stress is high enough or the organism cannot escape the stress, mortality can occur (i.e. lethal response, e.g. Micevska et al., 2006). At lower levels of stress or where the organism can escape we may expect sublethal effects on life-history traits (growth and reproduction; Gribben and Wright, 2006, Gribben et al., 2009, Wright and Gribben, 2008) or behaviour (Wright et al., 2010). Most studies focus on mortality and fail to cover the diversity of responses fauna can have.

Here, we investigate the effects of discarded cigarette butts on tidepool/intertidal snails in an urban coastal area of Sydney, Australia. An initial survey showed that up to 2–3 butts were to be found in small (5–10 l) tidepools (pers. obs.), isolated from adjacent waterways by tides for up to 6 h. Our aims were to investigate a dose–response of intertidal snails to cigarette butt leachate, including: lethal response (mortality) and sub-lethal behavioural responses, and to relate the findings to population and assemblage dynamics.

Section snippets

Species

Three species of snail (Mollusca: Gastropoda), common inhabitants of intertidal rock pools (Underwood, 1984a, Underwood, 1984b), were used to examine the effects of cigarette butt chemicals on survival and behaviour. Species were: Austrocochlea porcata, Nerita atramentosa and Bembicium nanum. Snails were collected by hand at several intertidal rock platforms in Sydney, Australia (33.86°S, 151.20°E) and transferred to aerated fresh seawater in buckets for transport to University of Technology,

Mortality

100% mortality was recorded for all 3 species at 100% leachate concentration after 8 days (Fig. 1, Fig. 2). However, at lower concentrations, species-specific differences were observed (Fig. 1). A. porcata had the lowest tolerance to leachate, with greater mortality after 8 days at 25% (G test, G = 3.8, with p = .05); it was also the only species to incur mortality at 10% CBL. At 25% CBL N. atrementosa had higher survivorship than B. nanum. This suggests that, while high concentrations may cause high

Acknowledgements

We’d like to thank Sam Philp, Jonathan Le and Nikki Bramwell for assistance with experiments. This is contribution Number 152 of the Sydney Institute of Marine Science.

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