Assessment of polystyrene microplastics as dietary additives in aquaculture species, Catla catla: Alters growth, feed utilization, nutritional composition, hematology and gut histopathology

Recently, aquaculture species have been facing various negative consequences of ingesting microplastics (MPs). In order to find out the adverse impacts of MPs, this study aimed to assess growth, body composition, nutrient digestibility, hematological indices and gut histopathology of Catla catla fingerlings by the dietary exposure of polystyrene MPs (PS-MPs). C. catla (initial weight, 7.03±0.02 g; n, 270) were given PS-MPs at different inclusion concentrations i.e., 0 %, 0.5 %, 1 %, 1.5 %, 2 % and 2.5 % for 90 days. Fish were fed twice a day, about 5 % of their live weight. The water quality parameters such as temperature (25–27 °C), pH (7.3–8.3), dissolved oxygen (5.4–7.2 mg/L) were maintained at the regular basis throughout the experiment. PS-MPs significantly (p