Frequency of microplastics in mesopelagic fishes from the Northwest Atlantic
| dc.contributor.author | Wieczorek, Alina M. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Morrison, Liam | |
| dc.contributor.author | Croot, Peter L. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Allcock, A. Louise | |
| dc.contributor.author | MacLoughlin, Eoin | |
| dc.contributor.author | Savard, Olivier | |
| dc.contributor.author | Brownlow, Hannah | |
| dc.contributor.author | Doyle, Thomas K. | |
| dc.contributor.funder | Petroleum Infrastructure Programme | |
| dc.contributor.funder | European Regional Development Fund | |
| dc.contributor.funder | Science Foundation Ireland | |
| dc.contributor.funder | Irish Government | |
| dc.contributor.funder | Marine Institute | |
| dc.contributor.funder | National University of Ireland, Galway | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2018-05-02T10:16:30Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2018-05-02T10:16:30Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2018 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Microplastics are a ubiquitous pollutant in our seas today and are known to have detrimental effects on a variety of organisms. Over the past decade numerous studies have documented microplastic ingestion by marine species with more recent investigations focussing on the secondary impacts of microplastic ingestion on ecosystem processes. However, few studies so far have examined microplastic ingestion by mesopelagic fish which are one of the most abundant pelagic groups in our oceans and through their vertical migrations are known to contribute significantly to the rapid transport of carbon and nutrients to the deep sea. Therefore, any ingestion of microplastics by mesopelagic fish may adversely affect this cycling and may aid in transport of microplastics from surface waters to the deep-sea benthos. In this study microplastics were extracted from mesopelagic fish under forensic conditions and analysed for polymer type utilising micro-Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (micro-FTIR) analysis. Fish specimens were collected from depth (300–600 m) in a warm-core eddy located in the Northwest Atlantic, 1,200 km due west of Newfoundland during April and May 2015. In total, 233 fish gut contents from seven different species of mesopelagic fish were examined. An alkaline dissolution of organic materials from extracted stomach contents was performed and the solution filtered over a 0.7 μm borosilicate filter. Filters were examined for microplastics and a subsample originating from 35 fish was further analysed for polymer type through micro-FTIR analysis. Seventy-three percent of all fish contained plastics in their gut contents with Gonostoma denudatum having the highest ingestion rate (100%) followed by Serrivomer beanii (93%) and Lampanyctus macdonaldi (75%). Overall, we found a much higher occurrence of microplastic fragments, mainly polyethylene fibres, in the gut contents of mesopelagic fish than previously reported. Stomach fullness, species and the depth at which fish were caught at, were found to have no effect on the amount of microplastics found in the gut contents. However, these plastics were similar to those sampled from the surface water. Additionally, using forensic techniques we were able to highlight that fibres are a real concern rather than an artefact of airborne contamination | en |
| dc.description.sponsorship | National University of Ireland, Galway (postgraduate scholarship); Irish Government (Marine Research Programme under the framework of JPI Oceans ( PBA/ME/15/03, the PLASTOX Project); Science Foundation Ireland (13/RC/2092) | en |
| dc.description.status | Peer reviewed | en |
| dc.description.version | Published Version | en |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | en |
| dc.identifier.articleid | 39 | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Wieczorek, A. M., Morrison, L., Croot, P. L., Allcock, A. L., MacLoughlin, E., Savard, O., Brownlow, H. and Doyle, T. K. (2018) 'Frequency of microplastics in mesopelagic fishes from the Northwest Atlantic', Frontiers in Marine Science, 5, 39 (9pp). doi: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00039 | en |
| dc.identifier.doi | 10.3389/fmars.2018.00039 | |
| dc.identifier.endpage | 9 | |
| dc.identifier.issn | 2296-7745 | |
| dc.identifier.journaltitle | Frontiers in Marine Science | en |
| dc.identifier.startpage | 1 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10468/5968 | |
| dc.identifier.volume | 5 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en |
| dc.publisher | Frontiers Media SA | en |
| dc.relation.project | info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/SFI/SFI Research Centres/13/RC/2092/IE/Irish Centre for Research in Applied Geosciences (iCRAG)/ | |
| dc.relation.uri | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2018.00127/full | |
| dc.rights | © 2018, Wieczorek, Morrison, Croot, Allcock, MacLoughlin, Savard, Brownlow and Doyle. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. | en |
| dc.rights.uri | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
| dc.subject | Myctophids | en |
| dc.subject | Marine litter | en |
| dc.subject | Micro-FTIR | en |
| dc.subject | Fibres | en |
| dc.subject | Eddy | en |
| dc.subject | Deep sea | en |
| dc.subject | Biogeochemical cycling | en |
| dc.subject | Carbon sequestration | en |
| dc.title | Frequency of microplastics in mesopelagic fishes from the Northwest Atlantic | en |
| dc.type | Article (peer-reviewed) | en |