Abstract

Microplastics (MPs) are ubiquitous across all ecosystems, but the physical fate of MPs within specific littoral compartments in lakes is poorly understood. Here, we describe the fate of MPs across five littoral compartments: water, macrophytes, periphyton, rocks, and sediment, to contribute to a whole-lake MP particle budget as part of the pELAstic project, which has been adding polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) MPs to an entire lake over three years in a whole-ecosystem experiment at the IISD-ELA. We quantified MP abundance across three particle size fractions (>212, 106–212, and 106–53 µm) by sampling each compartment at five stations four times during the ice-free season in year two of the experiment. We scaled MP concentrations to the entire lake using GIS techniques supplemented by high-resolution aerial imagery; of all MP added to the lake, we estimated 8% (±5%) of PE, 5% (±2%) of PS, and 3% (±2%) of PET to be in the littoral zone on average. MP fate is variable within and between seasons: up to 15% of PS and 9% of PET accumulates in periphyton within a season; some of this MP is resuspended periodically during storms, but ~95% may move to other compartments in the winter. Between ice-free seasons, beached MPs are resuspended and brought back into littoral surface water. Future work should continue characterizing the spatial and temporal drivers of littoral MP particle fate as MP detection and mitigation policy is being developed worldwide.

Publication Date

8-12-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Environmental Science (MS)

Department, Program, or Center

Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences

College

College of Science

Advisor

Matthew Hoffman

Advisor/Committee Member

Anna Christina Tyler

Advisor/Committee Member

Chelsea Rochman

Comments

This thesis has been embargoed. The full-text will be available on or around 5/15/2027.

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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