Zooplankton, eating plastic, filmed

The problem of the presence of a huge amount of plastic waste in the ocean is often mentioned in the media, but insufficient attention is paid to its solution. Meanwhile, due to plastic, marine animals are dying, plastic waste is almost everywhere, and in some regions of the oceans whole islands of plastic float.

Large marine animals suffer from plastic for various reasons. Some animals swallow plastic (for example, seabirds), and then die because of clogged stomachs. Many fish and marine mammals fall into traps, such as floating old fishing nets. But in addition to large animals, the smallest organisms suffer - for example, zooplankton. The other day, a video appeared on the Web, showing how the copepods (one type of zooplankton), passes plastic through itself.

True, the video was not filmed in its natural habitat - scientists modeled the situation characteristic of the oceans and seas, using microscopic (7-30 microns) particles of fluorescent polystyrene, surrounding plankton with plastic. It is worth saying here that this is a situation that is not divorced from reality - there are a lot of plastic microparticles in the water column of many areas of the oceans and seas, which break up over time.
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Usually most species of zooplankton feed on algae. At the same copepods, sensors are rather well developed, which help to determine the “edible” algae for the species. However, the organisms passed through plastic microparticles, obviously taking them for food. Such particles do not cause any particular harm to the body of the copepod, but in some cases the passage of plastic through the body's body slows down. In the case of plankton, a delay of several days is exhaustion and death from starvation. Plus, algae, which also enter the body of the copepod, begin to digest more slowly, which means that the body receives less nutrients.



As a result, all this adversely affects the survival rate of the population.