The production of plastics has exponentially increased over time such that the observation of microplastics in the oceans has become a major concern given how frequently these particles and marine biota may interact. Microplastics can be ingested by diverse species, including invertebrates, which can lead to physical damage due to their small size and potentially chemical damage related to the ingestion of monomers, polymeric additives, or adsorbed chemicals. This study reports on the first evidence of microplastics in Mnemiopsis leidyi. Microplastics were described by type, quantified, and had their chemical composition identified. In total, 328 samples of microplastic (MP) candidates were observed: blue fibers were the most abundant, followed by black, red, and green fibers as well as blue fragments. Three types of microplastics were chemically identified as polyurethane, unplasticized...

Plastic debris has been reported in the marine environment since the '70s. These plastic materials are introduced into the marine environment in several sizes, one of them microplastics (MP), and they have drawn great interest and concern in the past decades. Consumption of MP can cause weight loss, feeding rate decrease, reproductive activity decrease, and several other negative effects. Ingestion of MPs has already been reported for some species of polychaetes but the use of these annelids in MP studies is still poorly reported. Costa et al. (2021) was the first study to investigate the capability of the reef-building polychaete Phragmatopoma caudata to incorporate microplastic in its colony's structures. This makes the colonies a reservoir of MP and thus they reflect the environment's quality regarding MP presence. Consequently, this specie becomes an important asset to MP pollution i...