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Identification of tidal trapping of microplastics in a temperate salt marsh system using sea surface microlayer sampling
Microplastics are contaminants of increasing global environmental concern. Estuaries are a major transport pathway for land-derived plastics to the open ocean but are relatively understudied compared to coastal and open marine environments. The role of the “estuarine filter”, by which the supply of...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7445233/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32839471 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-70306-5 |
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author | Stead, Jessica L. Cundy, Andrew B. Hudson, Malcolm D. Thompson, Charlie E. L. Williams, Ian D. Russell, Andrea E. Pabortsava, Katsiaryna |
author_facet | Stead, Jessica L. Cundy, Andrew B. Hudson, Malcolm D. Thompson, Charlie E. L. Williams, Ian D. Russell, Andrea E. Pabortsava, Katsiaryna |
author_sort | Stead, Jessica L. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Microplastics are contaminants of increasing global environmental concern. Estuaries are a major transport pathway for land-derived plastics to the open ocean but are relatively understudied compared to coastal and open marine environments. The role of the “estuarine filter”, by which the supply of sediments and contaminants to the sea is moderated by processes including vegetative trapping and particle flocculation, remains poorly defined for microplastics land to sea transfer. Here, we focus on the sea surface microlayer (SML) as a vector for microplastics, and use SML sampling to assess microplastic trapping in a temperate marsh system in Southampton Water, UK. The SML is known to concentrate microplastics relative to the underlying water and is the first part of rising tidal waters to traverse intertidal and upper tidal surfaces. Sampling a salt marsh creek at high temporal resolution allowed assessment of microplastics in-wash and outflow from the salt marsh, and its relationship with tidal state and bulk suspended sediment concentrations (SSC), over spring and neap tides. A statistically significant decrease in microplastics abundance from the flood tide to the ebb tide was found, and a weak positive relationship with SSC observed. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7445233 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-74452332020-08-26 Identification of tidal trapping of microplastics in a temperate salt marsh system using sea surface microlayer sampling Stead, Jessica L. Cundy, Andrew B. Hudson, Malcolm D. Thompson, Charlie E. L. Williams, Ian D. Russell, Andrea E. Pabortsava, Katsiaryna Sci Rep Article Microplastics are contaminants of increasing global environmental concern. Estuaries are a major transport pathway for land-derived plastics to the open ocean but are relatively understudied compared to coastal and open marine environments. The role of the “estuarine filter”, by which the supply of sediments and contaminants to the sea is moderated by processes including vegetative trapping and particle flocculation, remains poorly defined for microplastics land to sea transfer. Here, we focus on the sea surface microlayer (SML) as a vector for microplastics, and use SML sampling to assess microplastic trapping in a temperate marsh system in Southampton Water, UK. The SML is known to concentrate microplastics relative to the underlying water and is the first part of rising tidal waters to traverse intertidal and upper tidal surfaces. Sampling a salt marsh creek at high temporal resolution allowed assessment of microplastics in-wash and outflow from the salt marsh, and its relationship with tidal state and bulk suspended sediment concentrations (SSC), over spring and neap tides. A statistically significant decrease in microplastics abundance from the flood tide to the ebb tide was found, and a weak positive relationship with SSC observed. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-08-24 /pmc/articles/PMC7445233/ /pubmed/32839471 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-70306-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Stead, Jessica L. Cundy, Andrew B. Hudson, Malcolm D. Thompson, Charlie E. L. Williams, Ian D. Russell, Andrea E. Pabortsava, Katsiaryna Identification of tidal trapping of microplastics in a temperate salt marsh system using sea surface microlayer sampling |
title | Identification of tidal trapping of microplastics in a temperate salt marsh system using sea surface microlayer sampling |
title_full | Identification of tidal trapping of microplastics in a temperate salt marsh system using sea surface microlayer sampling |
title_fullStr | Identification of tidal trapping of microplastics in a temperate salt marsh system using sea surface microlayer sampling |
title_full_unstemmed | Identification of tidal trapping of microplastics in a temperate salt marsh system using sea surface microlayer sampling |
title_short | Identification of tidal trapping of microplastics in a temperate salt marsh system using sea surface microlayer sampling |
title_sort | identification of tidal trapping of microplastics in a temperate salt marsh system using sea surface microlayer sampling |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7445233/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32839471 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-70306-5 |
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