Assessment and quantification of microplastic contamination in fishes with different food habits from Beel wetlands

• Incidence of microplastics in different fishes of Beel wetland ecosystem studied. • Microplastics were detected in gastrointestinal tracts of all the studied fishes. • Most abundant MPs in all trophic level belongs to fiber with 100–500 µm size. • Polyethylene (herbivorous and carnivorous), Nylon (omnivorous) are major polymers. • Descending order of MPs abundance from carnivorous, omnivorous and herbivorous fishes. In the present study, the occurrence of MPs in herbivore, omnivore and carnivore fishes has been evaluated from beel , a freshwater wetland. A total of 90 fishes were collected and MPs detected in all the samples. Glossogobius giuris , a carnivorous fish had the highest number of MP mean abundance of 5.50 ± 0.60 numbers per individual. Carnivorous fishes exhibited the highest number of average MP abundance compared to omnivorous and herbivorous fishes. Fibre-shaped MPs were most abundantly found. Smaller MPs in the size range of 100–500µm were dominant and transparent MPs followed by blue colored MPs were mostly found. The predominant polymer was polyethylene in the case of carnivores followed by omnivore while Nylon was mostly found in omnivores. A positive relationship was found between the trophic levels and MPs abundance which indicates that MPs may transfer along the food chain and accumulate in higher trophic levels.