Nowadays, microplastics represent one of the main threats to marine ecosystems, being able to affect organisms at different stages of their life cycle and at different levels of the food web. Although the presence of plastic debris has been reported in different habitats and the ability to ingest it has been confirmed for different taxa, few studies have been performed to elucidate the effects on survival and development of marine animals. Thus, we explored the effects of different environmental concentrations of polystyrene microbeads on the early stages of two invertebrate species widespread in the Mediterranean shallow waters: the pelagic planktotrophic pluteus larvae of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus and the filter-feeding sessile juveniles of the ascidian Ciona robusta. We evaluated the effects on larvae and juvenile development and determined the efficiency of bead ingestion. The feeding stages of both species proved to be extremely efficient in ingesting microplastics. In the presence of microbeads, the metamorphosis of ascidian juveniles was slowed down and development of plutei altered. These results prompted the necessity to monitor the populations of coastal invertebrates since microplastics affect sensitive stages of life cycle and may have consequences on generation recruitment.

如今，微塑料已成为海洋生态系统的主要威胁之一，能够在生命周期的不同阶段和食物网的不同水平上影响生物。尽管在不同的生境中已经报告了塑料碎片的存在，并且已经为不同的生物分类证实了塑料碎片的摄取能力，但很少进行研究来阐明塑料碎片对海洋动物的生存和发育的影响。因此，我们探索了聚苯乙烯微球的不同环境浓度的对地中海浅水广泛2种无脊椎动物的早期阶段的影响：浮游planktotrophic长腕幼虫海胆幼虫Paracentrotus苋和海鞘的滤食性无柄少年玻璃海鞘罗布斯塔。我们评估了对幼虫和幼体发育的影响，并确定了摄取珠子的效率。事实证明，这两种物种的进食阶段都非常有效地吸收了微塑料。在存在微珠的情况下，海鞘幼虫的变态变慢，并且生殖器官的发育发生了变化。这些结果促使有必要监测沿海无脊椎动物的种群，因为微塑料会影响生命周期的敏感阶段，并可能对新生代产生影响。