In situ microplastics ingestion by Antarctic marine benthic invertebrates

Abstract

<p>Microplastics have been recognised as persistent marine contaminants and mounting evidence supports their designation as anthropogenic stressors to marine organisms. Despite the remoteness of Antarctica, microplastics contamination has been reported in every marine environment investigated in this area to date. Due to ocean currents and frontal systems, microplastics may become entrapped within polar regions and increase bioavailibilty to inhabiting fauna. Antarctic marine benthic invertebrates represent a research priority due to their sensitivity to change as well as contribution to ecological functioning and food webs. The current study investigated microplastics ingestion by the epifaunal, carnivorous polychaete <em>Barrukia cristata</em> and the infaunal, filter-feeding bivalve, <em>Laternula elliptica</em>. Animals were collected by SCUBA adjacent to Rothera research station, Adelaide Island. After digestion in 10 % potassium hydroxide (KOH) followed by filtration, microplastics ingested by individual animals were separated. Microplastics were then counted and characterised by shape, colour, size and polymer type by Micro-Fourier transform Infrared spectroscopy. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) was the most abundant polymer type, followed by polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA). Congruent to earlier reports, fibres were found to be the most abundant source of microplastics contamination. However, it must be highlighted that fragments were also recovered from the animals analysed. Results determined the current level of microplastics ingestion by two benthic marine invertebrates of different feeding strategies in coastal environments of the Antarctic Peninsula. These findings indicated the bioavailability of microplastics and highlighted the potential of trophic transfer throughout the Antarctic marine food web.</p>

Microplastic Pollution in the Inlet and Outlet Networks of Rawa Jombor Reservoir: Accumulation in Aquatic Fauna, Interactions with Heavy Metals, and Health Risk Assessment

“…In contrast to zooplankton, the types in benthic organisms were nitrile and EVA. Hoellein et al (2017) and Hurley et al (2021) reported that nitrile and EVA polymer types were commonly abundant in benthic organisms. This study also revealed that the dominant polymer type of MPs in fish was nitrile and EVA (Figure 7(a)).…”

Occurrence of microplastics in the gastrointestinal tract of benthic by–catches from an eastern Mediterranean deep–sea environment

“…Microplastics are ubiquitous, from high-altitude inland lakes (Zhang et al, 2016;Çomaklı et al, 2020;Pastorino et al, 2021) to remote areas such as deep-sea environments (Zhu et al, 2019;Barrett et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020), islands (Imhof et al, 2017;Nel et al, 2020;Tan et al, 2020), the Arctic and the subarctic regions (Obbard et al, 2014;Cózar et al, 2017;Fang et al, 2018;Hurley et al, 2021). Studying the MPs dynamic is essential to better understand the distribution and bioavailability in the water column (Galloway et al, 2017;Li et al, 2018).…”