Rachel L. Coppock

TL;DR: It is shown that deep-sea sediments are a likely sink for microplastics, and the dominance of microfibres points to a previously underreported and unsampled plastic fraction.

TL;DR: A new, portable method to separate microplastics from sediments of differing types, using the principle of density floatation, which is cheap, reproducible and easily portable, lending itself for use in the laboratory and in the field, eg.

TL;DR: An estimate of the extent to which microplastic concentrations are underestimated with traditional sampling is provided, where coastal waters are predicted to have the greatest influence on marine life, on both sides of the North Atlantic Ocean.

TL;DR: It is emphasized that the shape and chemical profile of a microplastic can influence its bioavailability and toxicity, drawing attention to the importance of using environmentally relevant microplastics and chemically profiling plastics used in toxicity testing.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors used exposure studies incorporating algal prey and microplastics of varying sizes and shapes at a concentration of 100 µm−1 to show that prey selection by the copepod Calanus helgolandicus was affected by the size and shape of microplastic and algae they were exposed to; Exposure to nylon fibres resulted in a 6% decrease in ingestion of similar shaped chain-forming algae, whilst exposure to nylon fragments led to an 8% decrease of ingestion of a unicellular algae that were similar in shape and size.