Journal
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
Volume 175, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.113269
Keywords
Jellyfish; Plastic contamination; Microplastic ingestion; Time of presence; Retention time; Microplastic egestion
Funding
- PERSEO project [201710051]
- Canary Island Government [TESIS 20 150 10011]
- ERDF funds
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This study investigates the ingestion of microplastics by a bloom-forming jellyfish species and its underlying factors. The results show that the presence of prey is crucial for microplastic ingestion, and the duration of their presence in the jellyfish's digestive system increases with higher concentrations of microplastics.
Microplastic ingestion was studied in A. aurita, a bloom-forming, circumglobal medusa. Here, we determined whether factors such as the concentration of polyethylene microspheres (75-90 mu m) or the absence/presence of prey affect the ingestion, duration of microspheres in the gastrovascular cavity (time of presence), and retention time. The presence of polyethylene microspheres' was determined by exposing medusae during 480 min to three different treatments (5000, 10,000, 20,000 particles L-1), and was checked every 10 min to ascertain whether they had incorporated any. Preliminary results show that microsphere ingestion occurred only in the presence of prey (similar to 294 Artemia nauplii L-1). The time of presence of microbeads in A. aurita increased (103, 177, and 227 min), with increasing microplastic concentration, and the microbeads were egested within 150 min. This study initiates the understanding of the potential implications that arise of the encounter between jellyfish and microplastic agglomerates, and with perspectives for future research.
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