Scientists here prove deep water fish ‘can’t escape plastic pollution’

MORE than two-thirds of the deep water fish stock in the north-west Atlantic have ingested plastic – one of the highest frequencies worldwide.

A new study, carried out by marine scientists at NUI Galway, found that 73pc of the monitored deep water fish from the region had ingested plastic particles.

Scientists carried out the research during a transatlantic crossing onboard the Marine Institute’s Celtic Explorer research vessel, taking dead deep sea fish from midwater trawls.

The fish were taken from a depth of up to 600 metres and ranged in size from 3.5cm to 59cm. They included the spotted lanternfish, glacier lanternfish, white-spotted lanternfish, rakery beaconlamp, stout sawpalate and scaly dragonfish.

Microplastics commonly break down from larger plastic items entering our oceans but also originate from waste water effluents, carrying plastic fibres and microbeads from clothes or cosmetics.

Due to their low density, most of these microplastics float at the surface. Lead author of the study Alina Wieczorek, a PhD candidate from the School of Natural Sciences and Ryan Institute at NUI Galway, said the fish were likely exposed when they migrate to the surface at night to feed.

“One of the inspected spotted lanternfish, which was 4.5cm in size, had 13 microplastics extracted from its stomach contents. The identified microplastics were mostly fibres, commonly blue and black in colour. Some only measured 50 microns in length.

In total, 233 fish were examined with 73pc of them having microplastics in their stomachs, making it one of the highest reported frequencies of microplastic occurrence in fish worldwide,” she said.

Dr Tom Doyle, a co-author of the study from the Ryan Institute at NUI Galway, said: “While there is clearly a concern that the ingestion of microplastics with associated toxins may have harmful effects on these fishes, or even the fishes that feed on them, our study highlights that these seemingly remote fishes located thousands of kilometres from land and 600 metres down in our ocean are not isolated from our pollution.”

The study is published in ‘Frontiers in Marine Science’.