Meeting Abstract

P3-78   -   Is reef safe sunscreen really safe? Tarleton , AG*; Frias Vellon, AI; Statile, KA; Macrander, J; Florida Southern College; Florida Southern College; Florida Southern College; Florida Southern College atarleton@mocs.flsouthern.edu

Anthropogenic impacts have been contributing to the decline of coral reefs in recent years; however, increased exposure to common pollutants such as sunscreen usage in these areas has been largely overlooked. This is cause for concern as the creation of “reef safe” sunscreens using physical blockers (such as zinc oxide) to prevent UV exposure are widely being used without any investigation into their impact on coral reefs. We used Exaiptasia pallida, an emerging model organism commonly used to study coral bleaching, and to study the impacts of various sunscreens on survivorship and stress response. Our results showed that in one case the physical blocking zinc oxide-based sunscreens were more detrimental than sunscreens with known harmful chemical blocker ingredients. The damage these sunscreens caused included phenotypic signs of stress (such as long-term tentacle retraction) as well as increased mortality rates. We observed similar results across juvenile life stages in the model sea anemone Nematostella vectensis and a similar stress response with adult tube anemones (Ceriantheopsis americana), indicating even “reef safe” sunscreens have long term impacts across Cnidaria. Using an RNAseq approach we evaluated the differential gene expression profiles across three different “reef safe” sunscreens as well as the chemical blockers for E. pallida and recovered a similar gene expression profile to what is commonly observed in stressed response and programmed cell death. Our results indicate that the labeling or use of “reef safe” sunscreens should be used with caution as developers may have to look beyond the active ingredient of a sunscreen to determine if its presence in the ocean is completely harmless to reef building corals and their relatives.