Meeting Abstract
Plastic production has been continually growing worldwide due to its high durability, low cost, and light weight. Microplastics are either intentionally created, or derived from larger plastic sources via mechanical, photolytic, or chemical degradation. Microplastics can adsorb contaminants and persist in the ocean, often settling in the sediment. This may pose problems for benthic marine organisms that ingest small particles, such as sand dollars and sea cucumbers. Sand dollars (Echinodermata: Echinoidea: Clypeasteroida) are microphagous feeders ingesting particles, and occur in high densities in nearshore sandy environments altering the sediment through bioturbation. Sea cucumbers (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea: Holothuriida/Aspidochirotida) are deposit feeders ingesting sediment in seagrass and sandy habitats. This study had four goals: first, to examine if sediment where sand dollars and sea cucumbers were collected contain microplastics; second, to examine if Mellita tenuis, a common sand dollar in the northern Gulf of Mexico, ingests microplastics in two locations along the panhandle of Florida, U.S.A.; third, to determine if sea cucumbers (Holothuria floridana, Holothuria mexicana, and Actinopyga agassizi) ingests microplastics in two locations along the Florida Keys, U.S.A.; and fourth, to conduct a laboratory experiment to examine if M. tenuis will ingest microbeads. Sediment samples contained a variety of microplastics, mainly fibers and fragments. Mellita tenuis and all three species of sea cucumbers ingested microplastics of different sizes and shapes similar to the microplastics extracted from the collected sediment, which may make them useful as a monitoring tool for nearshore sandy environments.
