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Beyond harm: synthesising meta-analytical and mechanistic evidence on animal responses to microplastics

Figshare 2026
Colette Martin, Pablo Burraco, Katharina Ruthsatz

Summary

This review pulls together findings from 14 previous studies to look at how microplastics affect animals overall, things like their growth, behavior, and survival. The takeaway is that microplastics generally cause measurable harm across many species, which raises concern since these tiny plastic particles are already found in our food, water, and even our bodies. While this study focuses on animals rather than humans directly, it adds to growing evidence that microplastic pollution is a biological stressor worth taking seriously.

This dataset contains the data associated with the Review article “Beyond harm: synthesising meta-analytical and mechanistic evidence on animal responses to microplastics”. Data were compiled from 14 published meta-analyses examining biological responses to microplastic exposure across animal taxa. The dataset includes extracted effect sizes and associated information used to synthesise responses across biological trait categories and taxonomic groups. Effect-size metrics include Hedges’ g, log response ratios (lnRR), and odds ratios (OR), as reported in the source meta-analyses.

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