Museo Marítimo del Cantábrico, Av.da de Severiano Ballesteros S/N, 39004 Santander, Spain.
Museo Marítimo del Cantábrico, Av.da de Severiano Ballesteros S/N, 39004 Santander, Spain.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2020 Feb;151:110846. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110846. Epub 2020 Jan 29.
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.
微塑料纤维是海洋环境中广泛存在的污染物。有人在过去 20 多年前采集的博物馆馆藏海洋海绵标本中寻找过这种污染物。在分析的一半以上样本中观察到了这种污染物，这为过去提供了一个参考点。分析表明，纤维在水柱中是漂泊的，并被海绵主动吸收。已经证明，天然环境中的底部固定海绵会将纤维包含在内。研究过去采集并保存在自然历史收藏中的生物体中的微塑料是确定参考点和建立时间趋势的关键，特别是考虑到 1980 年前对此主题缺乏研究。利用保存在自然历史博物馆中的动物的想法可以扩展到其他污染物，以寻找参考点或过去的基线。
