Surrounded by emerging markets with considerable plastic consumption,the South China Sea has been a focus area of microplastic research.A survey on the floating microplastics(>0.3 mm)and microplastics ingested by f...Surrounded by emerging markets with considerable plastic consumption,the South China Sea has been a focus area of microplastic research.A survey on the floating microplastics(>0.3 mm)and microplastics ingested by fish and mollusks was conducted around three remote islands here.Compared with the results from several previous studies,a high abundance of floating microplastics(with a median of 1.9×10^(5)items/km^(2) or 0.7 items/m^(3))was observed,revealing another“hot spot”for microplastics.Polyolefin,especially polypropylene,was the main component.The diversity index and evenness index were calculated and evaluated based on the composition of microplastics.The characteristic peaks of Raman spectra concerning pigmented microplastics were provided.Transparent sheets/films were predominant in the water sample,which was quite different from a similar study in this sea area(8.9%for film),and only 16.4%of floating microplastics(>0.3 mm)were fibers/lines,implying that the main sources of floating microplastics(>0.3 mm)might be household/agricultural consumption activities.The transparent fiber/line was also dominant in organisms.It is suggested that the main sources of microplastics ingested by organisms might be both fabric fibers and fishing/aquaculture.展开更多
基金The study was supported by National Key Research&Development Program of China(Grant No.2019YFD0901101)China Blue Bay Remediation Action Plan.The authors are grateful to Professor Niu Wentao and Dr.Yu Shuangen for their help with samples collection and Professor Du Jianguo for his help with species identification.
文摘Surrounded by emerging markets with considerable plastic consumption,the South China Sea has been a focus area of microplastic research.A survey on the floating microplastics(>0.3 mm)and microplastics ingested by fish and mollusks was conducted around three remote islands here.Compared with the results from several previous studies,a high abundance of floating microplastics(with a median of 1.9×10^(5)items/km^(2) or 0.7 items/m^(3))was observed,revealing another“hot spot”for microplastics.Polyolefin,especially polypropylene,was the main component.The diversity index and evenness index were calculated and evaluated based on the composition of microplastics.The characteristic peaks of Raman spectra concerning pigmented microplastics were provided.Transparent sheets/films were predominant in the water sample,which was quite different from a similar study in this sea area(8.9%for film),and only 16.4%of floating microplastics(>0.3 mm)were fibers/lines,implying that the main sources of floating microplastics(>0.3 mm)might be household/agricultural consumption activities.The transparent fiber/line was also dominant in organisms.It is suggested that the main sources of microplastics ingested by organisms might be both fabric fibers and fishing/aquaculture.
