Institute of Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials National Research Council of Italy, via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 Pozzuoli, NA, Italy; Department of Pharmacy, University of Naples Federico II, Via D. Montesano 49, 80131 Naples, Italy.
Centro di Referenza Nazionale per l'Analisi e Studio di Correlazione tra Ambiente, Animale e Uomo, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Mezzogiorno, Via Salute 2, 80055 Portici, Italy.
Sci Total Environ. 2024 Oct 20;948:174698. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.174698. Epub 2024 Jul 10.
Microplastics, MPs, plastic fragments with a dimension lower than 5 mm, and microfibers, MFs, synthetic and natural/artificial fibrous fragments with a diameter lower than 50 μm, are ubiquitous pollutants identified in different environmental compartments. In this work the occurrence of MPs and MFs on honeybees, Apis mellifera, and beehive products was evaluated, using Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy, confirming that MPs and MFs are widely present as air contaminants in all the apiary's areas (high and low urbanized areas) in Southern Italy. Results indicated that independently from the site, both honeybees and honey samples, are contaminated by MFs with non-natural color. The majority of MFs were of natural origin followed by artificial MFs and synthetic MFs. Moreover, the chemical composition of MFs isolated from honeybees reflect that used in synthetic fabrics, leading to the hypothesis that they are released from textile to air where are captured by bees. Results highlight that MFs represent a class of ubiquitous airborne anthropogenic pollutants. The identification of polytetrafluoroethylene, PTFE, MPs in honeybees confirm the recent findings that PTFE MPs are diffuse soil and air contaminants while the identification of polyethylene, PE, based MPs in honey samples, from low density urban sites, could be correlated to the large use of PE in agriculture. In the honey samples, also polycaprolactone, PCL, MPs were identified, mainly in high density urban sites, confirming that biodegradable materials could be further pollutants in the environments. The results indicate that honeybees are contaminated by MPs and MFs during their flights or picking up from the hive components, flowers, from other nest mates, from the clothes of the beekeeper, among others and some of them could be transferred to honey samples that could be also affected by soil contamination.
微塑料、 MPs、尺寸小于 5 毫米的塑料碎片和微纤维、 MFs、直径小于 50 微米的合成和天然/人造纤维碎片，是在不同环境介质中发现的普遍存在的污染物。在这项工作中，使用傅里叶变换红外微光谱法评估了 MPs 和 MFs 在蜜蜂、 Apis mellifera 和蜂巢产品上的出现情况，证实 MPs 和 MFs 作为空气污染物广泛存在于意大利南部所有养蜂区（高城市化和低城市化地区）。结果表明，无论地点如何，蜜蜂和蜂蜜样本都受到非天然颜色的 MFs 污染。大多数 MFs 是天然来源的，其次是人工 MFs 和合成 MFs。此外，从蜜蜂中分离出的 MFs 的化学成分反映了它们在合成织物中的用途，这导致了它们从纺织品释放到空气中并被蜜蜂捕获的假设。结果表明， MFs 代表了一类普遍存在的空气传播人为污染物。在蜜蜂中鉴定出聚四氟乙烯、 PTFE MPs 证实了最近的发现，即 PTFE MPs 是广泛存在的土壤和空气污染物，而在来自低密度城市地区的蜂蜜样本中鉴定出的基于聚乙烯、 PE 的 MPs，则可能与农业中大量使用 PE 有关。在蜂蜜样本中，还鉴定出了聚己内酯、 PCL MPs，主要在高密度城市地区，这证实了可生物降解材料可能是环境中的另一种污染物。研究结果表明，蜜蜂在飞行或从蜂巢组件、花朵、其他巢友、养蜂人的衣服等中采集时会受到 MPs 和 MFs 的污染，其中一些可能会转移到蜂蜜样本中，这些样本也可能受到土壤污染的影响。
