We can't find the internet
Attempting to reconnect
Something went wrong!
Hang in there while we get back on track
Surrounded by microplastic, since when? Testing the feasibility of exploring past levels of plastic microfibre pollution using natural history museum collections
Summary
Microplastic fibers were found in over half of marine sponge specimens collected more than 20 years ago and preserved in a museum collection. This retrospective finding confirms that microplastic fiber pollution in the ocean predates recent awareness, providing a historical baseline for tracking contamination over time.
Microplastic fibres are a widespread pollutant in the marine environment. Their presence has been searched for in marine sponge specimens of a museum, collected over 20 years ago. The pollutant was observed in more than half of the samples analysed, allowing a reference point to be fixed in the past. Analysis has demonstrated that fibres were vagrant in the water column and were incorporated actively by sponges. Inclusion into bottom-fixed sponges has been demonstrated for the natural environment. The study of microplastic in organisms collected in the past and stored in natural history collections is the key for fixing reference points and build up temporal trends, especially considering the lack of studies on this topic before 1980. The idea of using animals preserved in natural history museums could be extended to other pollutants in order to search for reference points or past baselines.
Sign in to start a discussion.
More Papers Like This
Review of microplastics in museum specimens: An under-utilized tool to better understand the Plasticene
A review of microplastic studies using museum collection specimens spanning 1900-2019 found that archived marine and freshwater organisms can fill knowledge gaps on historical microplastic pollution trends, with microfibers as the most common type found across all specimen types reviewed.
Sponges as libraries: Increase in microplastics in Cinachyrella alloclada after 36 years
Researchers compared microplastic concentrations in the tropical sponge Cinachyrella alloclada using museum specimens from 1981 versus field-collected specimens from 2017, finding a tenfold increase from 0.13 to 1.37 microplastics per gram of tissue and an increase in prevalence from 10% to 80% of individuals, with Raman spectroscopy identifying polypropylene fibers as the dominant polymer type.
Can natural history collection specimens be used as aquatic microplastic pollution bioindicators?
Researchers explored whether preserved animal specimens from natural history museum collections could serve as historical records of microplastic pollution over time. By reviewing how such collections have been used to track other pollutants, they identified key challenges — including inconsistent sampling and specimen degradation — and proposed guidelines for using museum archives to reconstruct how microplastic contamination has changed over decades.
Microplastics in Museums: Pollution and Paleoecology
This study investigated microplastic contamination in museum natural history collections, assessing both the pollution risk to preserved specimens and the potential for using archived samples to study historical microplastic accumulation in ecosystems.
Monitoring the evolution of deep-sea microplastic pollution in the Indo-Pacific using natural history collection holothurian specimens
Researchers used preserved holothurian (sea cucumber) specimens from natural history collections spanning decades to monitor the temporal evolution of deep-sea microplastic pollution in the Indo-Pacific, providing a rare historical record of how microplastic ingestion by benthic organisms has changed since plastic production began in the 1950s.