A comprehensive global inventory of microplastic body burden in sediment-dwelling marine invertebrates

This dataset comprises 412 unique records of marine benthic invertebrates with a recorded number of microplastics per individual recovered. These data are collected from the available literature spanning the years Jan 2000 - Dec 2020 and selected using strict inclusion and exclusion criteria (see Porter et al., in submission). The key metric recorded was microplastics per individual (often recording the reported mean). Each individuals taxonomy was categorised using WORMS, the latitude and logitude of the report recorded, biomasses either were reported or inferred, and a number of other metrics were included where reported including filter pore size, microplastic sizes, colours, shapes and polymers. Four key biological traits were scored for each animal (position in the sediment, dominant feeding mechanism, mobility, and habit). The dataset also includes the mean modelled surface abundance of microplastics within a 250km radius of the record calculated from Van Sebille et al., 2014 (10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/124006), the citation of each record, the year published and which Spalding's province the record is to be found in.