Abundance of microplastic in different coastal areas using Phragmatopoma caudata (Kroyer in Morch, 1863) (Polychaeta: Sabelariidae) as an indicator

• Autores: Yapuchura Ocaris, Enrique Ronald, Schuab, João Marcos, Pereira Quirino, Welton, Silva de Paula, Midiã, Milagres, Mateus Reis, Motta, Daniel Gosser, Zamprogno, Gabriela Carvalho, Paz Otegui, Mariana Beatriz, da Costa, Mercia Barcellos
• Formato: artículo
• Fecha de Publicación: 2023
• Institución: Universidad Tecnológica del Perú
• Repositorio: UTP-Institucional
• Lenguaje: inglés
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.utp.edu.pe:20.500.12867/7012
• Enlace del recurso: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12867/7012; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163219
• Nivel de acceso: acceso abierto
• Materia: Microplastic; Marine ecology; Polychaete; https://purl.org/pe-repo/ocde/ford#1.05.08

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 investigation in coastal areas. Therefore, this work aims to investigate the abundance of MPs on the coastline of Espírito Santo using P. caudata as an indicator of MP presence. For this, we collected samples of P. caudata colonies in 12 sampling sites along the Espírito Santo coast (three replicates at each site). These colony samples were processed to extract the MPs particles from the colony surface, its inner structure, and tissues from the individuals. These MPs were counted.