Microplastic pollution in the Greenland Sea: Background levels and selective contamination of planktivorous diving seabirds.
Microplastics have been reported everywhere around the globe. With very limited human activities, the Arctic is distant from major sources of microplastics. However, microplastic ingestions have been found in several Arctic marine predators, confirming their presence in this region. Nonetheless, existing information for this area remains scarce, thus there is an urgent need to quantify the contamination of Arctic marine waters. In this context, we studied microplastic abundance and composition within the zooplankton community off East Greenland. For the same area, we concurrently evaluated microplastic contamination of little auks (Alle alle), an Arctic seabird feeding on zooplankton while diving between 0 and 50 m. The study took place off East Greenland in July 2005 and 2014, under strongly contrasted sea-ice conditions. Among all samples, 97.2% of the debris found were filaments. Despite the remoteness of our study area, microplastic abundances were comparable to those of other oceans, with 0.99 ± 0.62 m-3in the presence of sea-ice (2005), and 2.38 ± 1.11 m-3in the nearby absence of sea-ice (2014). Microplastic rise between 2005 and 2014 might be linked to an increase in plastic production worldwide or to lower sea-ice extents in 2014, as sea-ice can represent a sink for microplastic particles, which are subsequently released to the water column upon melting. Crucially, all birds had eaten plastic filaments, and they collected high levels of microplastics compared to background levels with 9.99 and 8.99 pieces per chick meal in 2005 and 2014, respectively. Importantly, we also demonstrated that little auks took more often light colored microplastics, rather than darker ones, strongly suggesting an active contamination with birds mistaking microplastics for their natural prey. Overall, our study stresses the great vulnerability of Arctic marine species to microplastic pollution in a warming Arctic, where sea-ice melting is expected to release vast volumes of trapped debris.
CEFE UMR 5175, CNRS - Université de Montpellier - Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier - EPHE, Montpellier, France. Electronic address: francoise.amelineau@gmail.com.
F
F
Amélineau
Laboratoire MARBEC, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
D
D
Bonnet
Département de Chimie, Institut Universitaire de Technologie de Montpellier-Sète, Université de Montpellier, Sète, France.
O
O
Heitz
Laboratoire MARBEC, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
V
V
Mortreux
Environmental Science Department, Alaska Pacific University, 4101 University Drive, Anchorage, AK 99508, USA.
A M A
AMA
Harding
Department of Biology, Pomona College, 175 W 6th St., Claremont, CA 91711, USA.
N
N
Karnovsky
Freshwater Institute, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 501 University Crescent, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N6, Canada; Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Powstancow Warszawy 55, 81-712 Sopot, Poland.
W
W
Walkusz
Littoral Environnement et Sociétés (LIENSs), UMR 7266 CNRS-Université de La Rochelle, La Rochelle, France.
J
J
Fort
CEFE UMR 5175, CNRS - Université de Montpellier - Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier - EPHE, Montpellier, France; FitzPatrick Institute, DST/NRF Excellence Centre at the University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa.
D
D
Grémillet
D000818:Animals; D001110:Arctic Regions; D001717:Birds; D046091:Charadriiformes; D004032:Diet; D004242:Diving; D004435:Eating; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005615:Freezing; D057232:Global Warming; D006116:Greenland; D046448:Ice Cover; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D010316:Particle Size; D010969:Plastics / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000032:analysis; D012623:Seawater / Q000737:chemistry; D014876:Water Pollution / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000032:analysis; D015048:Zooplankton
D010969:Plastics
Arctic; Little auk; Plastic; Sea ice; Selective uptake; Zooplankton