Ingestion of plastic by fish: A comparison of Thames Estuary and Firth of Clyde populations.

This study compared plastic ingestion between pelagic and benthic fish populations from two UK watersheds: the Thames Estuary and the Firth of Clyde. The alimentary canals of 876 individuals were examined. Of twenty-one estuarine species investigated, fourteen ingested plastics, including predator (fish) and prey (shrimp) species. Overall, 32% of organisms ingested plastic, mostly fibres (88% of total plastics). More flatfish (38%) ingested plastics than other benthic species (17%). In the Thames, more plastic was ingested by pelagic species (average number of plastic pieces ingested: 3.2) and flatfish (average number of plastic pieces ingested: 2.9) than by shrimp (average number of plastic pieces ingested: 1). More fish from the Clyde ingested plastic than similar Thames species (39% compared to 28% respectively); however, the average amount of plastic ingested did not differ between the sites.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Marine Pollution Bulletin

• Publication date

  2018-12-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Geography, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.09.054PMID 30503418
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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