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Exploring transfer of microplastics in the trophic chain: a prey-predator interaction case in the Strait of Messina
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This study examined how microplastics transfer through marine food webs via predator-prey interactions, tracking the movement of particles across trophic levels. Results confirmed that microplastics can be transferred from prey to predator and accumulate at higher trophic levels, posing risks to top predators and fisheries.
Over the last decades, microplastics (MPs) pollution has become a long-term global issue that seriously threatens the biodiversity and health of marine ecosystems. MPs can easily enter in the marine food webs indirectly through predation, undergoing transfer processes along the different trophic levels. In this regard, zooplanktonic organisms could play a key role in the MPs trophic transfer covering an important link between phytoplankton and higher trophic levels. Although many research have focused on accumulation and transport of MPs during experimental trials, only few of them have studied these mechanisms in natural environments food webs. In this study, a two-levels trophic chain - composed by a zooplankton species Thysanopoda aequalis (n= 58 samples) as prey and a mesopelagic fish species Argyropelecus hemigymnus (n=60 samples) as predator – was selected to investigate the MPs trophic transfer in the Strait of Messina food chains. An alkaline digestion protocol and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy were used to extract and characterize the MPs ingested by the two species. The preliminary results showed no differences in abundance and shape of MPs ingested among individual size for both species, whereas fibers dominated in the sorted. Blue, black and white were the predominant colors of MPs in T. aequalis, accounting for 63 Also see: https://micro2024.sciencesconf.org/559683/document
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Exploring transfer of microplastics in the trophic chain: a prey-predator interaction case in the Strait of Messina
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Researchers examined the transfer of microplastics across trophic levels in a prey-predator marine food web, tracking particles from prey organisms to predators. The study confirmed trophic transfer of microplastics and found that predators can accumulate higher particle concentrations than their prey.
Ingestion and transfer of microplastics in the planktonic food web
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Researchers demonstrated that microplastics are ingested and transferred through a planktonic food web, with particles passing from primary producers to zooplankton grazers and on to predatory plankton, establishing trophic transfer as a real pathway for microplastic movement through marine food chains.
Investigating microplastic trophic transfer in marine top predators
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Researchers investigated whether microplastics can transfer through the food chain by analyzing the scat of captive grey seals and the wild mackerel they were fed. They found microplastics in about half of the seal scat samples and a third of the fish, with similar particle types in both. The study suggests that trophic transfer is a plausible route for microplastics to move up marine food chains to top predators.
From prey to predators: Evidence of microplastic trophic transfer in tuna and large pelagic species in the southwestern Tropical Atlantic
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Researchers found evidence of microplastic trophic transfer from prey to tuna and large pelagic predators in the southwestern Tropical Atlantic, demonstrating that plastic contamination moves through marine food chains to economically important fish species.
Trophic transfer of microplastics from mysids to fish greatly exceeds direct ingestion from the water column
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This study compared how fish take in microplastics directly from water versus through eating contaminated prey. Researchers found that fish consumed far more microplastics by eating prey organisms that had already ingested plastic particles than by filtering them from the water, highlighting that the food chain is a major route of microplastic exposure for predators.
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