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Plastic Ingestion by the Small-Spotted Catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) from the South West Coast of the United Kingdom
Summary
Researchers found plastic in the digestive tracts of nearly 14% of small-spotted catsharks caught off the UK coast, with both macroplastics and microplastics present. Sharks are apex predators and their ingestion of plastics indicates widespread contamination throughout the marine food web.
Plastic pollution has increased dramatically worldwide and is having a detrimental effect on a variety of marine organisms. This study contributes to the existing data on the ingestion of both macroplastics and microplastics by one elasmobranch species, the small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula), considering the occurrence in males and females. Plastics were extracted from the stomach and spiral valve of (N = 200, n = 100 females and n = 100 males) and analysed by visual observations. A total of 28 pieces of plastic were found with five pieces extracted from a single individual. Overall findings indicate that this shark species is vulnerable to some extent to plastic ingestion (6.5% frequency of occurrence), but different aspects, such as differences in plastic contamination levels of different locations and ability to regurgitate stomach content, may affect the results of similar studies.