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Research Gaps in the Study of Microplastics: Method Development for Raman Automation, and Examining Relationships between Ecological Traits and Anthropogenic Particle Ingestion in a Deep-sea Food Web
Summary
This research addressed two gaps in microplastic science: developing more efficient automated identification methods using Raman spectroscopy, and studying how microplastics move through deep-sea food webs. The work advances tools and knowledge needed to track plastic pollution in remote ocean environments.
Microplastics and other anthropogenic microparticles are an emerging class of contaminants in marine ecosystems. I explore two research gaps within the field of microparticle pollution: one related to improving efficiency and accuracy of microparticle quantification, and another related to the fate of microparticles in food webs. First, I validated the use of a non-polymeric adhesive to improve automated spectroscopy methods, as well as tested subsampling strategies to improve quantification efficiency. Second, I characterized the amount and diversity of microparticles ingested by species from a deep-sea food web of Monterey Bay, California. I assessed differences in particle ingestion in the context of ecological traits including habitat, diet, feeding strategy, and body size. I determined that species who occupied the lower-mesopelagic and bathypelagic zones were associated with a less diverse assemblage of particle morphologies compared to epipelagic and upper-mesopelagic species suggesting that where an animal lives in the water column influences exposure.