Search results for "Microplastics"
showing 10 items of 38 documents
Evaluating the presence of microplastics in striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) stranded in the Western Mediterranean Sea.
2020
Litter is a well-known problem for marine species; however, we still know little about the extent to which they're affected by microplastics. In this study, we analyse the presence of this type of debris in Western Mediterranean striped dolphins' intestinal contents over three decades. Results indicated that frequency was high, as 90.5% of dolphins contained microplastics. Of these microplastics, 73.6% were fibres, 23.87% were fragments and 2.53% were primary pellets. In spite of the high frequency of occurrence, microplastic amount per dolphin was relatively low and highly variable (mean ± SD = 14.9 ± 22.3; 95% CI: 9.58–23.4). Through FT-IR spectrometry, we found that polyacrylamide, typic…
Ingestion of microplastics and occurrence of parasite association in Mediterranean anchovy and sardine
2020
10 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, supplementary data https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111399
Chasing phthalates in tissues of marine turtles from the Mediterranean sea
2018
Tissues from thirteen specimens of marine turtles, one Dermochelys coriacea and twelve Caretta caretta, found dead along the Sicilian coasts in 2016 were analyzed for the presence of phthalates. Four phthalates (DEP, DBP, BBP, and DEHP) were found at different significant concentrations in liver and gonads, while only DBP was found in muscle tissues and at a fourfold lower concentration than other phthalates in Dermochelys coriacea. No traces of DEP were detected in C. caretta tissues where DOTP was also revealed. The presence of phthalates in fat tissue in specimens of C. caretta showed a major prevalence of the most lipophilic phthalates DEHP and DOTP. The total concentration of all analy…
First Assessment of Plasticizers in Marine Coastal Litter-Feeder Fauna in the Mediterranean Sea
2021
Micro and nanoplastics are harmful to marine life due to their high level of fragmentation and resistance to degradation. Over the past two decades, marine coastal sediment has shown an increasing amount of microplastics being a sort of trap for debris wastes or chemicals. In such an environment some species may be successful candidates to be used as monitors of environmental and health hazards and can be considered a mirror of threats of natural habitats. Such species play a key role in the food web of littoral systems since they are litter-feeders, and are prey for fishes or higher trophic level species. A preliminary investigation was conducted on five species of small-sized amphipod cru…
Using Boops boops (osteichthyes) to assess microplastic ingestion in the Mediterranean Sea
2020
Abstract This study assesses microplastic ingestion in Boops boops at different geographical areas in the Mediterranean Sea. A total of 884 fish were caught at 20 coastal sites in Spain, France, Italy and Greece and analyzed using a common methodological protocol. Microplastics were found in 46.8% of the sampled fish, with an average number of items per individual of 1.17 ± 0.07. Filaments were the predominant shape type, while polyethylene and polypropylene were indicated by FTIR as the most common polymer types of ingested microplastics. The frequency of occurrence, as well as the abundance and proportion of types (size, shape, color and polymer) of ingested microplastics, varied among ge…
Report of the Scientific Committee of the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (AESAN) on the presence and safety of plastics as contaminants…
2020
* This record is given in both English and Spanish. The use of plastics is widespread in both industry and domestic life as food packaging material and as a material that comes into contact with food. Therefore, plastics and their environmental impact, especially in the marine environment, arouse great interest and concern. Microplastics have been the focus of most of the studies carried out so far due to their growing presence in the natural environment and their potential to be transferred between trophic levels. It is necessary not only to make an exhaustive assessment of the presence of microplastics in the environment and food, but also of their effects on human’s health. This report a…
Effects of microplastics on the functional traits of aquatic benthic organisms: A global-scale meta-analysis
2021
Microplastics are widespread in the aquatic environment and thus available for many organisms at different trophic levels. Many scientific papers focus their attention on the study of the effects of microplastics on different species at individual level. Here we performed a global scale meta-analysis focusing our work on the study of the effect of microplastics on the functional traits of aquatic benthic organisms. Overall, microplastics showed a moderate negative effect on the examined functional traits of benthic organisms. Our results show that some crucial functional traits, such as those linked to behaviour and feeding, appear to be unaffected by microplastics. In contrast, traits rela…
An automatic flow-through system for exploration of the human bioaccessibility of endocrine disrupting compounds from microplastics
2021
This article reports on the first attempt towards investigating the leaching rates in the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract of plastic-borne contaminants that can be ingested accidentally using physiologically relevant body fluids. Oral bioaccessibility under fasted and fed states was determined in dynamic mode exploiting an automatic flow setup. The flow system is able to mimic the fast uptake of the released species from the polymeric matrix by absorption in the human digestive system by the in-line removal of the leached species. Complex GI extractants based on the Unified Bioaccessibility Method (UBM, fasted state) and Versantvoort test (fed-state) were brought through a microplastic-lo…
Tracing the fate of microplastic carbon in the aquatic food web by compound-specific isotope analysis
2019
Increasing abundance of microplastics (MP) in marine and freshwaters is currently one of the greatest environmental concerns. Since plastics are fairly resistant to chemical decomposition, breakdown and reutilization of MP carbon complexes requires microbial activity. Currently, only a few microbial isolates have been shown to degrade MPs, and direct measurements of the fate of the MP carbon are still lacking. We used compound-specific isotope analysis to track the fate of fully labelled 13C-polyethylene (PE) MP carbon across the aquatic microbial-animal interface. Isotopic values of respired CO2 and membrane lipids showed that MP carbon was partly mineralized and partly used for cell growt…
Effect of microplastics on nasal and intestinal microbiota of the high-exposure population
2022
BackgroundMicroplastic has become a growing environmental problem. A balanced microbial environment is an important factor in human health. This study is the first observational cross-sectional study focusing on the effects of microplastics on the nasal and gut microbiota in a highly exposed population.MethodsWe recruited 20 subjects from a Plastic Factory (microplastics high-exposure area) and the other 20 from Huanhuaxi Park (microplastics low-exposure area) in Chengdu, China. We performed the microplastic analysis of soil, air, and intestinal secretions by laser infrared imaging, and microbiological analysis of nasal and intestinal secretions by 16S rDNA sequencing.ResultsThe result show…