State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200062, China.
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2020 Oct 20;54(20):12979-12988. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.0c02374. Epub 2020 Oct 2.
A new technique involving large-volume (10 m) samples of seawater was used to determine the abundance of microplastics (MPs) in the water column in the West Pacific Ocean and the East Indian Ocean. Compared to the conventional sampling methods based on smaller volumes of water, the new data yielded abundance values for the deep-water column that were at least 1-2 orders of magnitude lower. The data suggested that limited bulk volumes currently used for surface sampling are insufficient to obtain accurate estimates of MP abundance in deep water. Size distribution data indicated that the lateral movement of MPs into the water column contributed to their movement from the surface to the bottom. This study provides a reliable dataset for the water column to enable a better understanding of the transport and fate of plastic contamination in the deep-ocean ecosystem.
一种新的技术涉及到 10 立方米的大体积海水样本，用于确定西太平洋和东印度洋水柱中微塑料（MPs）的丰度。与基于较小水量的传统采样方法相比，新数据产生的深水区含量值至少低 1-2 个数量级。这些数据表明，目前用于表面采样的有限批量体积不足以准确估计深水中的 MP 丰度。尺寸分布数据表明， MPs 横向进入水柱的运动有助于它们从表面移动到底部。本研究提供了一个可靠的水柱数据集，使人们能够更好地了解深海生态系统中塑料污染的迁移和归宿。
