Microplastics in commercial bivalves from China

Microplastics in Taihu Lake, China

“…To our best knowledge, the levels reported in this study are the highest for freshwater lakes worldwide (Supplementary materials Table 4). The levels of microplastic pollution in the clams from Taihu Lake (0.2e12.5 items/g ww) were similar to those in bivalves from China (0.9e10.5 items/g) (Li et al, 2015a(Li et al, , 2016. In a worldwide comparison, these bivalves have been classified as highly polluted organisms by microplastics (Li et al, 2015a(Li et al, , 2016.…”

“…The isolation of microplastics from organisms was carried out according to the method of Li et al (2015a). Briefly, the shell length and weight of each individual clam were recorded.…”

Micro-and macro-plastics in marine species from Nordic waters

“…It is also evident that lower trophic level species ingest microplastics. Microplastics have been found in both farmed and wild blue mussels (Mathalon & Hill, 2014;Li et al, 2015). For all these studies, fibres were the most dominant microplastic particles observed.…”

“…analysing 10 individuals as one big sample) and this is also the case for most of the studies from the Nordic environment. The variation in the microplastic levels might also be impacted by designation, for example Li et al (2015) found that if they presented their microplastic levels based on "number of microplastic found per g wet weight", instead of presenting it as microplastic found per individual, they reduced the variation. Therefore, the data for all studies should give both the levels per gram and per individual.…”

Microplastic: What Are the Solutions?

“…In addition, laboratory data suggest a growing list of zooplankton [40], arthropods [41], mollusks [42], and sediment worms [43] is also susceptible, along with phytoplankton interactions that may affect sedimentation rates [44]. In addition, examples of clams [45] and fish [46] recovered from fish markets have been found with abundant microplastics in the gut. A study of mussels in the lab demonstrated that 10 μm microplastics were translocated to the circulatory system [47], leading to studies that now demonstrate evidence that micro-and nanoplastics can bridge trophic levels into crustaceans and other secondary consumers [48,49].…”