Plastic debris ingested by deep-water fish of the Ionian Sea (Eastern Mediterranean)

Plastic ingestion by estuarine mulletMugil cephalus(Mugilidae) in an urban harbour, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

“…Compared to fish examined by Boerger et al (2010), the maximum number of plastic particles ingested by a single M. cephalus from Durban Harbour was four times lower, yet the average number of particles ingested by M. cephalus was considerably higher. Among marine environments, including the harbour in this investigation, the lowest incidence of plastic ingestion was found in fish from deep waters (Anastasopoulou et al 2013). The high incidence of plastic ingestion by M. cephalus in this study may be due to their mode of indiscriminate benthic feeding (Whitfield et al 2012), because plastics accumulate in intertidal sediments of Durban Harbour (Naidoo et al 2015).…”

“…However, habitat use may affect the type of plastic most likely to be ingested. For example, fibres formed the lowest proportion of the plastic ingested by pelagic-feeding fish in the Mediterranean Sea (Anastasopoulou et al 2013), but the highest proportion in benthic-or demersal-feeding fish, such as M. cephalus collected in Durban Harbour and gudgeons Gobio gobio from an urban French river . Although there are no comparable studies of plastic ingestion by benthic fish from deep seas, Woodall et al (2014) reported that the deep sea has become 'a major sink' for fibres, with concentrations of up to 15 fibres per 50 ml in the Mediterranean deep-sea sediment, whereas up to 10 fibres per 50 ml were found in Durban Harbour (Naidoo et al 2015).…”

“…Boerger et al 2010) and even at depths of 850 m in the Mediterranean Sea (e.g. Anastasopoulou et al 2013). Increasing plastic production and discards may make these encounters more frequent (Thompson et al 2009).…”

Marine Anthropogenic Litter

“…Studies that specifically evaluated male and female ingestion, found no significant differences in the plastic load (e.g. Day et al 1985; Van Franeker and Meijboom 2002;Lazar and Gracan 2011;Anastasopoulou et al 2013;. However, species showing strong sexual dimorphy or sex-dependent foraging ranges or winter distributions may show sex-specific uptake rates.…”

Microplastic: What Are the Solutions?

“…Widespread Effects on Marine Life Of the 557 species documented to ingest or entangle in our trash, at least 203 [1] of them are also ingesting microplastic in the wild, of which many are fish [37] and other vertebrates [38,39]. In addition, laboratory data suggest a growing list of zooplankton [40], arthropods [41], mollusks [42], and sediment worms [43] is also susceptible, along with phytoplankton interactions that may affect sedimentation rates [44].…”