MOSQUITOES CAN EAT MICROPLASTICS AND SPREAD IT TO FOOD WEB
Microplastics are ubiquitous pollutants found in marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. With so many microplastics in aquatic systems, it is inevitable that they will be ingested by aquatic organisms and be transferred up through the food web. Researchers found that mosquito larvae growing up in water contaminated with microplastic can accumulate plastic litter in their bodies, and some of it remains there even after the larvae emerge as adult flies.
-Researchers used fluorescent microplastic to track the particles in mosquitoes.
Under lab conditions researchers fed 150 aquatic mosquito larvae with a mixture of food and microplastics. They randomly selected 15 larvaes, and then 15 flying adult mosquitoes. They found microplastics in all 30 individuals. The mosquitoes may exacerbate the problem of plastic contamination, transmitting microplastics once they are eaten by animals, from freshwater to terrestrial ecosystems. Adult mosquitoes are predated by many animals including insects, aracnids birds and mammals as bats.
Where many insects are emerging from a highly contaminated site, the possibility of contamination of these predators could be high. While mosquitoes were used here as a model organism, any freshwater insect that can ingest microplastics will likely equally transmit plastics into a terrestrial adult stage.
Photo by James Gathany, CDC
Reference (Open Access): Al-Jaibachi et al., 2018. Up and away: ontogenic transference as a pathway for aerial dispersal of microplastics. Biology Letters.
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