Microplastic contamination in brown shrimp (Crangon crangon, Linnaeus 1758) from coastal waters of the Southern North Sea and Channel area

Is there any consistency between the microplastics found in the field and those used in laboratory experiments?

“…In this study, tightly tangled balls of plastics were predominantly found in up to 62% of the animals, and there were no significant differences in plastic load between males and females. Devriese et al (2015) found fibers in 63% of the shrimp studied (Crangon crangon), with an average value of 0.68 ± 0.55 MP/g wet weight.…”

Microplastic contamination in the San Francisco Bay, California, USA

“…Using a dissection microscope, plastic particles were removed, enumerated, and categorized into five classifications: fragment, pellet (spherical particle), fiber/line, film or foam (Free et al, 2014;McCormick et al, 2014). While instrumental analysis methods such as infrared or Raman spectroscopy are necessary for polymeric identification (i.e., polyethylene versus polypropylene), numerous studies have employed only visual identification for microplastic classification (e.g., Bond et al, 2014;Lavers et al, 2014;Devriese et al, 2015;Rochman et al, 2015;Romeo et al, 2015;Fossia et al, 2016;Hammer et al, 2016;Miranda and Carvalho-Souza, 2016;Nicolau et al, 2016;Peters and Bratton, 2016). Given the source (i.e., wastewater), fibers obtained in this processing would presumably be anthropogenic and derived from textiles, though a portion of fibers observed in wastewater may not be plastic, instead derived from other anthropogenic sources (Remy et al, 2015; Nirmela Arsem, personal communication).…”

Interactions of Microplastics with Freshwater Biota

“…In addition to the increasing number of laboratory studies, the monitoring of wild populations of the common shrimp Crangon crangon [51] and the Norway lobster Nephrops norvegicus [52] have shown that field populations in marine environments are exposed to MPs. In both studies, MPs (predominantly fibers) were detected in 63% [51] and 83% [52] of the examined animals. A recent study by Welden and Cowie [1] with N. norvegicus confirmed that MP exposure negatively affects feeding, body mass, metabolic activity, and energy reserves.…”