Benthic Crustacean Digestion Can Modulate the Environmental Fate of Microplastics in the Deep Sea.

ABSTRACT: Microplastics (MPs) are ubiquitous contaminants of the marine environment, and the deep seafloor is their ultimate sink compartment. Manipulative and field experiments provided evidence of the ingestion of MPs by deep-sea fauna, but knowledge of MPs' fate once ingested still remains scant. We provide evidence of MP partial retention and fragmentation mediated by digestion activity of a Norwegian langoustine, a good bioindicator for MP contamination of the deep sea. We report here that MPs in the intestines were more abundant and significantly smaller (up to 1 order of magnitude in surface) than those in the stomachs. Our results show that the stomach can act as a size-bottleneck for ingested MPs, enhancing the retention of larger particles within the stomach and promoting fragmentation int

SUBMITTER: Cau A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7997365 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature