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Microplastic Contamination in the Wild Caught Crab Podophthalmus Vigil (Fabricius, 1798) from Ganjam Coast, Odisha, India: First Report
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This first-ever study of microplastic contamination in the sentinel crab Podophthalmus vigil from India's Ganjam Coast found fibers, fragments, and granules — primarily polypropylene, polystyrene, and polyethylene — in the gills, gut, and muscle tissue, with gills showing the highest concentrations. The contamination of commercially harvested crabs across multiple tissue types, including edible muscle, demonstrates a direct microplastic exposure pathway to human consumers of coastal seafood.
Podophthalmus vigil (P vigil) is a marine crab which is widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific region which is commonly known as sentinel crab or long-eyed swimming crab. P. vigil is commercially important crab available in all the coastal areas of Peninsular India having good amount of protein, minerals and fatty acids. However, no work has been done on the Microplastic (MPs) contamination globally on this crab. The present study is the maiden study in documenting the presence of MPs in P. vigil (male, female and female carrying eggs). Fibres were the dominant consisting about 54.8%, followed by fragments (32.7%), Granule (9.7%), Foam (1.8%) and pellet (1.02%). Black colour being the dominant (27.82%) followed by Red (25.21%), Blue (24.20%), Transparent (16.54%) and White (5.29%). Mean Microplastic in gills is found to be higher than gut and muscle tissue. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) show 88% of variance in MPs contamination in different body parts of crab. Polypropylene (PP), Polystyrene (PS), Polyethylene (PE), (Polyethylene tetraphene (PET) and Polyamide (PA) were the polymer composition of microplastic found in the crab. For this study we collected the wild P.vigil from three landing areas of Ganjam, Odisha situated in the East coast of India. Our study aims to give a baseline data about the abundance, characteristics and distribution of MPS in gut, gill and muscle tissue of wild caught P.vigil (Fabricius, 1798).
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