Alice Fugagnoli 1, Will Norton 2 & Sarah Gabbott 2
1 School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH UK; af314@le.ac.uk
2 School of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH UK; whjn1@le.ac.uk
3 School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH UK; sg21@le.ac.uk
Microplastic (MP) pollution in the environment is a well-recorded and growing problem. Despite many ecosystems and animals becoming contaminated with MP we know little about how MP enters animal’s guts and tissues. Is it a passive process with MP being accidentally introduced? Or do animals actively (but mistakenly) imbibe MP?
Here we expose the Zebrafish (Danio rerio) to different densities of MP and different MP morphologies to determine whether they are prone to ingest MP, and if so whether there are biases to which type of MP they ingest, and whether this is passive or is active. Understanding if fish feeding behaviour has the potential to increase MP found inside them may inform fisheries on whether certain species should be considered hazardous to human consumption if they are fished from areas with high MP loads.