Abstract
This study reports plastic ingestion in various fish found from coastal and offshore sites in Scottish marine waters. Coastal samples consisted of three demersal flatfish species (n = 128) collected from the East and West coasts of Scotland. Offshore samples consisted of 5 pelagic species and 4 demersal species (n = 84) collected from the Northeast Atlantic. From the coastal fish sampled, 47.7% of the gastrointestinal tracts contained macroplastic and microplastic. Of the 84 pelagic and demersal offshore fish, only 2 (2.4%) individuals from different species had ingested plastic identified as a clear polystyrene fibre and a black polyamide fibre. The average number of plastic items found per fish from all locations that had ingested plastic was 1.8 (±1.7) with polyamide (65.3%), polyethylene terephthalate (14.4%) and acrylic (14.4%) being the three most commonly found plastics. This study adds to the existing data on macroplastic and microplastic ingestion in fish species.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 353-359 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Marine Pollution Bulletin |
Volume | 122 |
Early online date | 10 Jul 2017 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 15 Sept 2017 |
Keywords
- Macroplastic
- Microplastic
- Fish
- Ingestion
- Northeast Atlantic