Plastic debris in the open ocean
Andrés Cózar,Fidel Echevarría,J. Ignacio González-Gordillo,Xabier Irigoien,Bárbara Úbeda,Santiago Hernández-León,Alvaro T. Palma,Sandra Navarro,Juan García-de-Lomas,Andrea Ruiz,María L. Fernández-de-Puelles,Carlos M. Duarte +11 more
TLDR
Using data from the Malaspina 2010 circumnavigation, regional surveys, and previously published reports, this work shows a worldwide distribution of plastic on the surface of the open ocean, mostly accumulating in the convergence zones of each of the five subtropical gyres with comparable density.Abstract:
There is a rising concern regarding the accumulation of floating plastic debris in the open ocean. However, the magnitude and the fate of this pollution are still open questions. Using data from the Malaspina 2010 circumnavigation, regional surveys, and previously published reports, we show a worldwide distribution of plastic on the surface of the open ocean, mostly accumulating in the convergence zones of each of the five subtropical gyres with comparable density. However, the global load of plastic on the open ocean surface was estimated to be on the order of tens of thousands of tons, far less than expected. Our observations of the size distribution of floating plastic debris point at important size-selective sinks removing millimeter-sized fragments of floating plastic on a large scale. This sink may involve a combination of fast nano-fragmentation of the microplastic into particles of microns or smaller, their transference to the ocean interior by food webs and ballasting processes, and processes yet to be discovered. Resolving the fate of the missing plastic debris is of fundamental importance to determine the nature and significance of the impacts of plastic pollution in the ocean.read more
Citations
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Microplastic in three urban estuaries, China
Shiye Zhao,Lixin Zhu,Daoji Li +2 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the concentrations of suspended microplastics determine their bioavailability to low trophic organisms, and then possibly promoting the transfer of microplastic to higher trophics levels.
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Microplastic in Aquatic Ecosystems
TL;DR: This work summarizes the existing literature on the uptake of MP by living organisms, identifies knowledge gaps, suggest possible strategies to assess environmental risks arising from MP, and discusses prospects to minimize MP abundance in aquatic ecosystems.
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Ecotoxicological effects of microplastics on biota: a review.
Sadasivam Anbumani,Poonam Kakkar +1 more
TL;DR: The present review focused on the ecological impact of microplastics on biota at different trophic levels, its uptake, accumulation, and excretion etc., and its plausible mechanistic toxicity with risk assessment approaches.
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Interactions between microplastics and phytoplankton aggregates: Impact on their respective fates
Marc Long,Brivaëla Moriceau,Morgane Gallinari,Christophe Lambert,Arnaud Huvet,Jean Raffray,Philippe Soudant +6 more
TL;DR: The results clearly show that marine aggregates can be an efficient sink for microplastics by influencing their vertical distribution in the water column, and opens new questions regarding the impact of plastics on sedimentation fluxes in oceans.
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Lost, but Found with Nile Red: A Novel Method for Detecting and Quantifying Small Microplastics (1 mm to 20 μm) in Environmental Samples
TL;DR: This protocol has proven to be highly effective in the quantification of small polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, and nylon-6 particles, which frequently occur in the water column, and preliminary results from sea surface tows show a power-law increase in small microplastics.
References
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Microplastics in the marine environment
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TL;DR: Model calculations and experimental observations consistently show that polyethylene accumulates more organic contaminants than other plastics such as polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride, and PCBs could transfer from contaminated plastics to streaked shearwater chicks.