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Species-, feeding type- and habitat-dependent intake of microplastics by Arctic and Antarctic marine invertebrates
Summary
Scientists found tiny plastic bits (microplastics) in sea creatures living in remote Arctic and Antarctic waters — places far from major cities and factories — showing that plastic pollution has spread even to the most untouched corners of our oceans. Since these small creatures are eaten by fish and other animals up the food chain, this pollution could work its way toward the seafood many people eat, though more research is needed to understand exactly how much risk this poses to human health.
Microplastics research is a rapidly growing area of scientific interest; the number of papers in this field has increased almost exponentially in the last ten years, from less than 50 in 2014 to over 3,000 in 2024. However, relatively little is known about microplastics in remote areas of the planet, even though these areas are not impervious to anthropogenic impacts such as plastic pollution. Remote environments such as the Arctic and Antarctica are home to highly adapted ecosystems, and the biota in these regions form the basis for global foodwebs. Microplastics pollution in polar seas therefore has the potential to impact marine biota around the globe. In this regard, the present study provides much needed information about plastics in polar environments and the biota living there.Arctic marine biota and microplastics interaction, particularly in invertebrates, has received very little scientific attention thus far; at the time of writing this thesis, only fifteen studies have specifically investigated invertebrates. As the first study to analyse a range of benthic species from the European Arctic with different feeding types, this thesis contributes important new information to the field. Studies investigating Antarctic environmental microplastics are even fewer in number, with six studies analysing microplastics in Antarctic water and four studies analysing microplastics in sediments. Most reports of microplastics ingestion by Antarctic biota stem from higher predators and seabirds; however, microplastics have also been found in plankton such as krill and salps from the Southern Ocean. To the best of the authors knowledge, this is only the second study documenting microplastics in Antarctic benthic invertebrates.The Arctic benthic biota samples of this study were collected in the Barents Sea north of Norway, while the Antarctic water, sediment, planktonic and benthic biota samples were collected in three bays along the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP).Several interesting and potentially counterintuitive results are reported here pertaining to the samples analysed in this study. A) In the Arctic, the brittlestar Ophiacantha bidentata (a detritivore) was found to ingest significantly more microplastics per gram body dry mass than the bivalve Astarte crenata (suspension feeder) and the starfish Ctenodiscus crispatus (deposit feeder) (3 and 10 times more respectively). B) WAP sediment contained significantly more microplastics per volume unit than WAP water (by a factor of 5). C) No difference was discovered in microplastics load between sites within WAP bays nor between the three bays (which had different levels of human presence). D) In Antarctic marine invertebrates there was no significant difference in microplastics concentration between taxa, feeding types or sampling locations. E) A meta-analysis of all existing literature of microplastics in polar marine invertebrates showed a severe data deficiency and a lack of standardisation in measurement values; therefore, it is very difficult to assess the state of microplastics and what influences their uptake in these biota.This study is the first to: analyse microplastics in three species of benthic invertebrates of different feeding types from the European Arctic (suspension feeding bivalves, deposit feeding starfish, and detritivore brittlestars); compare microplastics in Arctic and Antarctic biota; report microplastics in water, sediment, and four invertebrate species from three Antarctic fjords (suspension feeding bivalves, salps, and sponges, and detritivore brittlestars), collected at contemporaneous times and locations; and compare the microplastics load of biota to their habitat. All of this information combined builds a picture of microplastics occurrence in polar marine environments and their ecological relevance, as well as shedding light on the influence that taxa, feeding types and functional traits have on the intake of microplastics by a range of marine invertebrates. This work can be viewed as a baseline for Arctic and Antarctic microplastics pollution, and as a first step towards monitoring and selecting polar species for future research into accumulation of plastic in polar habitats and organisms.