Marine Biology Commons^™

Environmental And Anthropogenic Factors Affecting Coral Health, Kristin Jones

2019 Symposium

Plastic pollution is a large and growing problem in our ever producing world. Not only does it litter our cities, but it is cluttering up the natural world as well, the largest being our oceans. Plastic is dumped into the seas where it floats and slowly breaks down into microplastics that are then ingested by marine animals. I will conduct an experiment to test the effects of micro plastics on coral health by subjecting palythoa corals to different plastic levels in a controlled environment. I hypothesize that corals will ingest micro plastics and will suffer health consequences, leading to a …