Diet dependent trophic transfer of nanoparticles (ZnO and TiO2) along the "photic biofilm-snail" food chain

Multispecies biofilm exhibited high resistance to nanotoxicity by secreting extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and undergoing alterations in the community composition. Scarce information was available to assess how these changes could further influence the transfer of nanoparticles (NPs) through the biofilm-based food chain. Photic biofilm was exposed to two distinct NPs (ZnO and TiO2) and subsequently grazed by snails. Exposure to different NPs led to variations in biomass, chlorophyll content, EPS productivity, alpha diversity, and community composition of the photic biofilm. The presence of ZnO NPs facilitated the growth of phylum Cyanobacteria while TiO2 promoted EPS productivity of photic biofilm. EPS were capable of embedding NPs (TiO2 and ZnO) within its matrix, thereby mitigating their aggregation within the biofilm matrix. These alterations were subsequently confirmed to have an impact on the trophic transfer factors (TTF) of NPs through the constructed biofilm-snail food chain. The TTF of ZnO was lower than that of TiO2 in feeding scenario 1 (only fed on TiO2 or ZnO biofilm) but higher than that of TiO2 in feeding scenario 2 (fed on TiO2 and ZnO biofilm simultaneously), which was attributed to the shifts in the algae composition and a smaller size of ZnO NPs in EPS. This study demonstrated that the response of photic biofilm to NPs further affected the TTFs of NPs through the food chain.