ISPRA, Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, Via di Castel Romano 100, 00128, Roma, RM, Italy.
ISPRA, Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, Via di Castel Romano 100, 00128, Roma, RM, Italy.
Environ Pollut. 2019 Oct;253:342-350. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2019.07.001. Epub 2019 Jul 5.
This study analyzes microplastic ingestion by three deep-water elasmobranch species (Galeus melastomus, Scyliorhinus canicula and Etmopterus spinax) from the Tyrrhenian Sea, discriminating between stomach and intestine contents. The absence of significant differences in frequency and abundance of plastic items into stomachs seems to suggest that ecological diversity among the three sharks does not strongly influence the probability of plastic ingestion in the study area. On the other hand, the detected differences in the microplastic content into the intestine might be due to a different retention time of microplastics, suggesting how feeding habits could influence metabolic features, and therefore affect the recovery of ingested plastic items. This information would improve the future development of marine micro-litter monitoring systems, following the MSFD requirements. Moreover, this study shows that all the three examined elasmobranch species can give important information even with relatively small sample sizes (N ≈ 30), and they could be used as target species for monitoring micro-litter ingestion in deep-water habitats.
本研究分析了来自第勒尼安海的三种深海软骨鱼（灰六鳃鲨、欧洲星鲨和尖吻鲭鲨）对微塑料的摄食情况，区分了胃和肠内容物。胃中塑料物品的频率和丰度没有显著差异，这似乎表明三种鲨鱼之间的生态多样性并没有强烈影响研究区域内塑料摄入的概率。另一方面，在肠道中检测到的微塑料含量差异可能是由于微塑料的停留时间不同，这表明饮食习惯如何影响代谢特征，从而影响摄入的塑料物品的恢复。这些信息将根据《海洋战略框架指令》的要求，改进未来海洋微垃圾监测系统的发展。此外，本研究表明，即使样本量相对较小（N≈30），所有三种被检查的软骨鱼物种都可以提供重要信息，它们可以用作监测深海生境中微垃圾摄入的目标物种。
