A new study release a sad fact, deep sea litter is not a recent thing. Researchers examined archived specimens of deep sea stars and brittle stars, collected
between 1976 and 2015, a more than 2,000 m depth down, in the Rockall Trough, a large sedimentary basin that lies to the west of Ireland and the United Kingdom. And researchers found traces of eight different plastics in their stomachs. In that area, basically, deep sea animals have been feeding on microplastic in the last 40 years. The study is published in Environmental Pollution.
–
Two echinoderm species examined in the study, a
brittle stars
Ophiomusium lymani
(dorsal side) and a deep sea sea star Hymenaster pellucidus. (ventral side). Scale bars denote 1 cm.
Polyester and nylon were among the plastics identified. Despite the “low” levels of microplastic found, accoring to researchers, is high, and shows that plastic pollution in our oceans is not a new problem.
Photo: Example of microplastics extracted from invertebrates over from the years.
ifesbob 