Marine Litter Vital Graphics

IMPACTS

There has been widespread publicity about pollution of the marine environment by plastic debris and its impact on organisms. Images of the brightly coloured plastic stomach contents of dead seabirds and countless whales, dolphins and turtles caught in floating debris or wearing discarded plastic rubbish are routine. But this is not only about large marine creatures swallowing or getting entangled in rubbish; organisms at every trophic level, living both on the seabed and in the water column, are also affected. Ecological impacts of marine plastic debris and microplastics

The plastic diet Plastic debris can have similar size characteristics to sediment and suspended particulate matter and can be ingested by filter feeding or sediment ingesting organisms. Lugworms, amphipods and barnacles have all been shown to ingest plastic fragments and fibres (Thompson et al., 2004). Even very small organisms at or near the bottom of the food chain, like filter feeding zooplankton, have been observed in the laboratory to take up microplastics (Cole et al., 2013; Setälä et al., 2014). Zooplankton usually excrete the particles within hours (which is comparable to natural food) but some How plastics enter the food web How plastics enter the food web

zooplankton have been found to retain microplastics for up to seven days (Cole et al., 2013). The ingestion of polystyrene particles by zooplankton has been found to significantly decrease their nutritional intake (because they can eat up to 40 per cent less real food) and also their reproductive output (Cole et al., 2015 and Lee et al., 2013). Apart from providing zero energy, a diet of non-nutritional microplastic beads also affects how these organisms deal with food shortages. Usually they instinctively decrease their metabolic rate to save energy when faced with starvation – however this does not occur when the diet contains microplastic beads (Cole et al., 2015).

Sea birds

Sea birds

Less dense microplastics oating on surface water Less dense microplastics oating on surface water

Annelids

Marine mammals Marine mammals

Annelids

Microplastics in beach sediments Microplastics in beach sediments

Zooplankton Zooplankton

Pelagic sh

Fouled microplastics sinking Fouled microplastics sinking

Pelagic sh

Mesopelagic sh Mesopelagic sh

Resuspended microplastics Resuspended microplastics

Bivalves

Bivalves

Demersal sh

Demersal sh

Holothurians Holothurians

Crustacans

Crustacans

Microplastics in benthic sediments Microplastics in benthic sediments

Sources: Lusher, A., Microplastics in the Marine Environment: Distribution, Interactions and E ects, in Bergmann, M., et al., Marine Anthropogenic Litter, 2015

Sources: Lusher, A., Microplastics in the Marine Environment: Distribution, Interactions and E ects, in Bergmann, M., et al., Marine Anthropogenic Litter, 2015

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Marine Litter Vital Graphics