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Microplastic Monitoring in Richardsonius balteatus from Ross Lake, WA
Summary
This undergraduate research study examined microplastic occurrence in redside shiners from glacier-fed Ross Lake in Washington state and tested whether ethanol preservation versus ice storage affected microplastic recovery from fish tissue. Researchers found microplastics in fish samples and identified potential methodological biases from storage method choice. The study contributes baseline data on microplastic exposure in freshwater fish from mountain glacier-fed lakes.
Recent work has shown that microplastics are present in glaciers. This is a concern for water bodies such as Ross Lake (WA) where glacier runoff may transport the microplastics into the watershed and be available to aquatic organisms. Currently there is no evaluation of how organism storage methods may impact microplastic recovery. In this study microplastic type and color in whole body Richardsonius balteatus (redside shiners) from Ross Lake were counted. Fish were collected from Ross Lake on July 6th, 2019. Approximately half of the samples were stored in ethanol and the remainder on ice. Characteristics including color and type (fragment, pellet, fiber, film, and foam) of recovered microplastics were compared between the two groups. To date, 43 fish stored in ethanol and 53 stored on ice have been analyzed. The average wet mass of ethanol-stored and ice-stored was 0.4329 and 0.3590g. A total of 478 total microplastics were identified in fish stored in ethanol (11.4 per fish). All the samples in ethanol had fibers; black fibers were the most prevalent at 39.11% of all fibers. Fragments, films, and foams were in 1% of the samples, and no pellets were observed. A total of 283 total microplastics were found in the samples stored on ice (5.3 per fish). Fibers were found in 97% of the fish; black fibers account for 29.93% of all fibers. Fragments and films were in 3.2% of plastics in all samples stored on-ice, with no pellets or foams observed.