Sá Sara, Torres-Pereira Andreia, Ferreira Marisa, Monteiro Sílvia S, Fradoca Raquel, Sequeira Marina, Vingada José, Eira Catarina
Department of Biology & CESAM & ECOMARE/CPRAM, Universidade de Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
Portuguese Wildlife Society (SPVS), Estação de Campo de Quiaios, 3081-101 Figueira da Foz, Portugal.
Animals (Basel). 2023 Oct 19;13(20):3263. doi: 10.3390/ani13203263.
This study characterises microplastics in small cetaceans on the coast of Portugal and assesses the relationship between several biological variables and the amount of detected microplastics. The intestines of 38 stranded dead cetaceans were processed in the laboratory, with digestion methods adapted to the amount of organic matter in each sample. The influence of several biological and health variables (e.g., species, sex, body condition) on the amount of microplastics was tested in all analysed species and particularly in common dolphins, due to the larger number of available samples. Most of the analysed individuals had microplastics in the intestine (92.11%), with harbour porpoises revealing a significantly higher median number of microplastics than common dolphins, probably due to their different diets, use of habitat and feeding strategies. None of the other tested variables significantly influenced the number of microplastics. Moreover, the microplastics found should not be enough to cause physical or chemical sublethal effects, although the correlation between microplastic ingestion and plastic additive bioaccumulation in cetacean tissues requires further investigation. Future monitoring in biota should rely on improved and standardised protocols for microplastic analyses in complex samples to allow for accurate analyses of larger samples and spatio-temporal comparisons.
本研究对葡萄牙海岸小型鲸类动物体内的微塑料进行了特征描述，并评估了几个生物学变量与检测到的微塑料数量之间的关系。在实验室对38头搁浅死亡鲸类动物的肠道进行了处理，消化方法根据每个样本中的有机物含量进行调整。在所有分析的物种中，特别是在普通海豚中（由于可用样本数量较多），测试了几个生物学和健康变量（如物种、性别、身体状况）对微塑料数量的影响。大多数分析个体的肠道中都有微塑料（92.11%），港湾鼠海豚体内微塑料的中位数数量显著高于普通海豚，这可能是由于它们不同的饮食、栖息地利用和觅食策略。其他测试变量均未对微塑料数量产生显著影响。此外，尽管鲸类动物组织中微塑料摄入与塑料添加剂生物累积之间的相关性需要进一步研究，但所发现的微塑料数量应该不足以造成物理或化学亚致死效应。未来对生物群的监测应依靠改进的、标准化的复杂样本微塑料分析方案，以便对更大的样本进行准确分析并进行时空比较。
