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Occurrence, bioaccumulation and ecological risk of aquaculture-derived microplastics in coastal waters
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Researchers reviewed microplastic contamination from aquaculture activities and found that fishing nets, foam buoys, and plastic packaging release large quantities of particles into coastal waters, with aquaculture-derived microplastics accounting for up to 99% of total microplastics at some sites. Cultured seafood consistently showed higher microplastic burdens than wild shellfish, highlighting aquaculture as a major but underestimated pollution source.
As emerging pollutants, microplastics (MPs) have attracted worldwide attention and recently become a research focus in aquatic environmental science. The sources of MPs in water environments include terrigenous input, tourism, ship transportation, aquaculture, fishing, and atmospheric deposition. Previous studies considered terrigenous input as the main source of microplastic pollution. However, recent studies found that in the investigated locations, the proportion of MPs from aquaculture even exceeded that from terrigenous input. Thus, the contribution of aquaculture activities to the abundance of MPs in coastal waters might be substantially underestimated. Fishing nets, foam buoys and other plastic products are widely used in aquaculture. They gradually disintegrate and finally release a large number of MPs into local water environments under long-term ultraviolet radiation and wind-wave action. Aquaculture activities such as feeding, processing, and packaging also release MPs into the water environments. These released MPs are defined as aquaculture-derived microplastics (AD-MPs). Currently, a large number of AD-MPs have been detected in different coastal waters, even accounting for 99.00% of the total MPs at some aquaculture areas. These results demonstrate that AD-MPs in coastal waters have become an important and non-negligible issue in MPs pollution. What’s more, MPs in waters and sediments can be ingested by aquatic organisms, adversely affecting the species, and subsequently displaying potential threats to human health via food chains. Since mariculture has become one of the major sources of seafoods, it is necessary to investigate the pollution of AD-MPs in cultured seafood. This review summarized the levels and characteristics of MPs in cultured organisms from different coastal waters. The results indicate that MPs have widely detected in cultured seafood all over the world, suggesting that the pollution of MPs in cultured seafood cannot be ignored, though the proportion of AD-MPs in the total MPs in mariculture species is still unclear. Given that mariculture activities could release a large number of MPs (AD-MPs), cultured marine organisms would absorb and accumulate MPs more easily than wildlife. To further identify the pollution of AD-MPs in cultured seafood, the levels and characteristics of MPs in cultured and wild bivalves and shellfish were compared. The results showed that MPs were detected in both, while the abundance of MPs in wild shellfish was generally lower than that in cultured ones, reflecting that AD-MPs are an important source of MPs in cultured seafood. Our review confirmed that AD-MPs are an important source of MPs in both coastal waters and cultured seafood. It would facilitate the scientific assessment of the ecological and health risks of AD-MPs, and provide helpful data to guide the use and management of plastic products in mariculture industries.
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