The presence of microplastics in fishes of South Maldives

Abstract Plastic pollution has been a widespread global challenge with negative impacts on human health, environment and economies. Recently its effect on the environment and marine life has been of immense interest. This study aimed to investigate the presence of microplastics in the gut, gill and flesh of Selar Crumenophthalmus and Decapterus Macarellus from two different locations in South Maldives. A total of 56 fishes were examined from the two species and a total of 200 possible microplastic pieces were identified by visual analysis. It was found that 80% of Selar Crumenophthalmus contained micro and macroplastics, whereas these were detected in 76.2% of Decapterus Macarellus. The average abundance of microplastics in fishes was 3.3 ± 4.6 items/individual and in both species, the abundance of microplastics was highest in the gills compared to other body parts with an average abundance of 1.4 ± 2.1 items/individual. The ingested plastics mainly consisted of fragments (57.5%), fibres (41.5%) and films (1%). The particles which were identified from the analysed samples predominantly included blue (36.90%), grey (30.48%), black (17.11%) and red (9.09%) colours. The ingested plastics were found to be polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), which were determined with the use of Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) Spectroscopy.