TINY CRUSTACEANS ARE EATING MICROPLASTICS IN DEEP-SEA ECOSYSTEMS
According to a recent study, microplastic contaminants occur in the very deepest reaches of the oceans. Researchers have detect the presence of ingested microplastics in the hindguts of deep-sea amphipod populations, in six deep ocean trenches from around the Pacific Rim, at depths ranging from 7000 m to 10890 m. The study is published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
More than 72% of the amphidos examined contained at least one microparticle. Microplastic ingestion has been observed in a wide range of animals, including plankton, bivalves, crustaceans, echinoderms, fishes, elasmobranchs and cetaceans. Plastic pollution is having a detrimental effect on the world's marine organisms, with an estimated 322 million tonnes of plastic produced annually.
This report is the deepest record of microplastic ingestion, indicating that anthropogenic debris is bioavailable to organisms at some of the deepest locations in the Earth's oceans.
Photo Deep-sea amphipods collected from hadal trenches around the Pacific rim. (a) Hirondellea gigas, (b) Hirondellea dubia and (c) Eurythenes gryllus. Scale bar is10 mm.
Reference (Open Access): Jamieson et al., 2019 Microplastics and synthetic particles ingested by deep-sea amphipods in six of the deepest marine ecosystems on Earth. R. Soc. open sci