Screening for microplastic particles in plankton samples: How to integrate marine litter assessment into existing monitoring programs?

Distribution and abundance of surface water microlitter in the Baltic Sea: A comparison of two sampling methods

“…A recent approach (Reisser et al, 2015) with a specially designed multi-level trawl that is able to sample from 0 to 5 m water column at 0.5 m intervals gave comparable results to the abovementioned results: median value 1.69 particles m − 3 with maximum concentrations (b-6 particles m −3 ) at the surface. In opposite to this are studies that show how the microplastic concentrations increase with depth (Lattin et al, 2004, Gorokhova, 2015. In the study of Lattin et al (2004) the results from the bottom layers in the offshore were comparable to ours (b7 particles m −3 ), while their reposted concentrations in the surface layers were lower (b2 particles m −3 ).…”

“…Studies of Doyle et al (2011) and Gorokhova (2015) used routinely collected historical zooplankton data for enumerating microplastics. The results of Doyle et al (2011) from the Northeast Pacific ocean reveal microplastic concentrations between 0.004 and 0.19 particles m − 3 (towable surface net with mesh size of 0.505 mm).…”

“…The results of Doyle et al (2011) from the Northeast Pacific ocean reveal microplastic concentrations between 0.004 and 0.19 particles m − 3 (towable surface net with mesh size of 0.505 mm). An exception to all these studies is the recent work of Gorokhova (2015) in the Baltic Sea where vertical zooplankton samples (N 90 μm) from one sampling station on the Swedish east-coast were analysed for microplastics. In this study microplastic concentrations were from 100 to 7.5 × 10 3 particles m −3 , which is order of magnitude higher than most studies with towable nets (including our study).…”

“…Research on microplastics is proceeding fast with numerous new studies giving more information on these topics. In the Baltic Sea, however, there is presently still relatively little information on the distribution and abundance of microlitter in different habitats (Magnusson and Norén, 2011, Magnusson, 2014, Gorokhova, 2015.…”

Microplastic Intake, Its Biotic Drivers, and Hydrophobic Organic Contaminant Levels in the Baltic Herring

“…To evaluate whether the observed MP burden could be predicted using ambient MP abundance data and food processing rates (objective 2), we modeled the ingestion of MP using literaturederived parameters on food uptake, egestion, and MP abundance in the study area. The rationale is that observed MP abundance in the gut would reflect average exposure levels assuming that (1) MP concentrations are fairly homogeneous in the outer coastal areas (Gorokhova, 2015;Gewert et al, 2017), which are the main feeding grounds of herring (Flinkman et al, 1998); (2) the MP abundance in the water column, where the fish feed, is similar to that at the surface, where the data on the relevant size fraction of MP (1-5 mm) were collected; (3) MP ingestion by herring is non-selective and thus proportional to the MP abundance in the water; and (4) gut evacuation rates are non-discriminatory, i.e., MP are egested at the same rate as prey remains. Then, the MP burden (MP ind −1 ) at any given time, t, can be written as the mass balance between the uptake and loss rates (Equation 1, Figure S2):…”