Microplastics occurrence in edible fish species (Mullus barbatus and Merluccius merluccius) collected in three different geographical sub-areas of the Mediterranean Sea.

The gastrointestinal tracts of 229 demersal fish belonging to two species (Mullus barbatus, Merluccius merluccius) were examined for microplastic ingestion. Samples were collected in 3 different FAO Geographical Sub-Areas (GSA-9, GSA-17, GSA-19) of the Mediterranean Sea. Ingested microplastics were characterized using a stereo-microscope: observed, photographed, measured and categorized according to size class, shape and colour. Plastic fragments (ranging from 0.10 to 6.6 mm) were detected in 23.3% of the total investigated fish; a total of 65 plastic particles (66% constituted by fibers) were recorded. The percentage of plastic ingestion shows high variability between the two species and among the different sampling area. The highest frequency (48%) was found in European hake from GSA-19. These preliminary results represent a baseline for the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive descriptor 10 in Italy as well as an important step for detecting microplastics in bioindicator species from different GSAs.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  Marine Pollution Bulletin

• Publication date

  2019-03-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.01.005PMID 30803626
• 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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