Microplastics and microfibers in surface waters of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, California

Kashiwabara, Lauren; Kahane-Rapport, Shirel R; King, Chad; DeVogelaere, Marissa; Goldbogen, Jeremy A.; Savoca, Matthew S.

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112148

Cited by 21 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Conversely, naturally occurring plant (e.g., wood, grass, or algae) or animal (e.g., fur or hair) particles are chemically different from anthropogenically processed particles of the same origin and match with natural spectra. Synthetic microparticles, definitively microplastic, accounted for 16% of the subsample analyzed, and although the polymer types identified in the present study differ somewhat from what others have reported in coastal waters off the West Coast of North America (Kashiwabara et al, 2021; Sutton et al, 2016), fibers were the majority morphotype found across studies. Microparticles categorized as possibly natural/processed accounted for 4% of the subsample analyzed and were keratin‐based fibers, possibly from wool, cashmere, alpaca (Granek et al, 2021), or marine mammals.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 77%

Temporal Variability of Microparticles Under the Seattle Aquarium, Washington State: Documenting the Global Covid‐19 Pandemic

Harris

Beur

Olsen

et al. 2021

Enviro Toxic and Chemistry

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Anthropogenic debris including microparticles (MP; <5mm) are ubiquitous in marine environments. The Salish Sea experiences seasonal fluctuations in precipitation, river discharge, sewage overflow events, and tourism-all variables previously thought to have an impact on MP transport and concentrations. Our goals are two-fold: 1) Describe long-term MP contamination data including concentration, type, and size and 2) Determine if seasonal MP concentrations are dependent on environmental or tourism variables in Elliott Bay, Salish Sea. We sampled 100 L of seawater at depth (~9 m) at the Seattle Aquarium approximately every two weeks 2019 -2020 and used an oil extraction This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Accepted Articleprotocol to separate MP. We found MP concentrations ranged from 0 -0.64 particles L⁻¹ and fibers were the most common typ e observed. Microparticle concentration exhibited a breakpoint on April 10, 2020, where estimated slope and associated MP concentration significantly declined. Further, when considering both environmental as well as tourism variables, temporal MP concentration was best described by a mixedeffects model with tourism as the fixed effect and the person counting MP as the random effect. While monitoring efforts presented here set out to identify effects of seasonality and interannual differences in MP concentrations, it instead captured an effect of decreased tourism due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. Long-term monitoring is critical to establish temporal MP concentrations and to help researchers understand if there are certain events, both seasonal and sporadic (e.g. rain events, tourism, or global pandemics), when the marine environment is more at risk from anthropogenic pollution.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 77%

Temporal Variability of Microparticles Under the Seattle Aquarium, Washington State: Documenting the Global Covid‐19 Pandemic

Harris

Beur

Olsen

et al. 2021

Enviro Toxic and Chemistry

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“… Filled red triangles represent plastic sampling locations at depth 50 and hollow red triangles represent surface locations 47 . Circle color represents different rorqual species (see legend).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Microplastic concentration in seawater within a known depth bin ( C d , pp m −3 ) was estimated using two published distributions 47 , 50 (Fig. 2 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the CCE, there is baseline data on microplastic concentrations in the water column that overlaps with critical foraging habitat for humpback ( Megaptera novaeangliae ), fin, and blue whales. In this region, mean surface water concentrations of microplastics are ~1 particle m −3 , but are severalfold higher near human population centers 47 – 49 . Measurements have found microplastic concentrations between 200 m and 600 m depths to be tenfold higher than those measured at the surface 50 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Field measurements reveal exposure risk to microplastic ingestion by filter-feeding megafauna

et al. 2022

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Microparticles, such as microplastics and microfibers, are ubiquitous in marine food webs. Filter-feeding megafauna may be at extreme risk of exposure to microplastics, but neither the amount nor pathway of microplastic ingestion are well understood. Here, we combine depth-integrated microplastic data from the California Current Ecosystem with high-resolution foraging measurements from 191 tag deployments on blue, fin, and humpback whales to quantify plastic ingestion rates and routes of exposure. We find that baleen whales predominantly feed at depths of 50–250 m, coinciding with the highest measured microplastic concentrations in the pelagic ecosystem. Nearly all (99%) microplastic ingestion is predicted to occur via trophic transfer. We predict that fish-feeding whales are less exposed to microplastic ingestion than krill-feeding whales. Per day, a krill-obligate blue whale may ingest 10 million pieces of microplastic, while a fish-feeding humpback whale likely ingests 200,000 pieces of microplastic. For species struggling to recover from historical whaling alongside other anthropogenic pressures, our findings suggest that the cumulative impacts of multiple stressors require further attention.

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“…Although spatiotemporal heterogeneity of MP abundance was observed in the study area, there was no significant difference among sampling stations during survey period, thereby suggesting that surface MPs do not locally aggregate at a particular station within the survey area. Sea surface MPs can be found globally from semi-closed bays (Lattin et al, 2004;Chen et al, 2018;Kashiwabara et al, 2021;Nakano et al, 2021) to the Arctic Ocean (Peeken et al, 2018;Kanhai et al, 2020). Mean abundance of MPs are observed to be ten orders of magnitude, ranging from 10 -5 items•m -3 in the equatorial Pacific (Spear et al, 1995) to 10 5 items•m -3 off the southern coast of Korea (Song et al, 2014), depending on sea area and mesh size of the net.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal variations of surface water microplastics near Kyushu, Japan: A quali-quantitative analysis

Kobayashi

Yagi

Kawaguchi

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Microplastics in the ocean are threatening marine ecosystems. Although plastic contaminants are ubiquitous from rivers to polar oceans, their distribution is thought to be heterogeneous, implying that both spatial and temporal variability exist. Here, we elucidate the significant spatial and temporal (seasonal) variations in the quanti-qualitative characteristics of microplastics off the west coast of Kyushu, Japan in the East China Sea. Six surveys across nine stations (n = 54) were conducted over a 14-month period, and a total of 6131 plastic items were identified. The average microplastic abundance (items·m-3) and size (mm) ± S.D. were 0.49 ± 0.92 (n = 54), and 1.71 ± 0.93 (n = 6131), respectively. Differences between the highest and lowest abundances were 50-fold among monthly means (1.97 ± 1.49, n = 9; 0.04 ± 0.03, n = 9), and 550-fold across all net tows (5.50; 0.01). With respect to colour, polymer type, and shape, white and transparent (68.5%), polyethylene (80%) fragments (76.0%) were the dominant composition. There were statistically significant differences for each of the analytical microplastic parameters among survey months (p < 0.02). Our results provide baseline data, and lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the spatiotemporal characteristics of microplastic pollution.

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Microplastics and microfibers in surface waters of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, California

Cited by 21 publications

References 36 publications

Temporal Variability of Microparticles Under the Seattle Aquarium, Washington State: Documenting the Global Covid‐19 Pandemic

Temporal Variability of Microparticles Under the Seattle Aquarium, Washington State: Documenting the Global Covid‐19 Pandemic

Field measurements reveal exposure risk to microplastic ingestion by filter-feeding megafauna

Spatiotemporal variations of surface water microplastics near Kyushu, Japan: A quali-quantitative analysis

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