ArticleEnvironmental science & technology2020
Benthic Crustacean Digestion Can Modulate the Environmental Fate of Microplastics in the Deep Sea.
Article in Environmental science & technology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 150 citations in OpenAlex.
- Concentration of microplastics in bivalves of the environment: a systematic review.Environmental monitoring and assessment · 2021Pooled it
- Microplastics and invasive crayfish: emerging interactions and ecological implications from three coexisting species in a subalpine lake.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Microplastic Passage through the Fish and Crayfish Digestive Tract Alters Particle Surface Properties.Environmental science & technology · 2025Article
- Bottom-Feeders Eat Their Fiber: Ingestion of Anthropogenic Microdebris by Antarctic Deep-Sea Invertebrates Depends on Feeding Ecology.Environmental science & technology · 2024Article
- Microplastics in the Volta Lake: Occurrence, distribution, and human health implications.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Review
- Microplastics Derived from Food Packaging Waste-Their Origin and Health Risks.Materials (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Caddisfly Larvae are a Driver of Plastic Litter Breakdown and Microplastic Formation in Freshwater Environments.Environmental toxicology and chemistry · 2022Article
- Occurrence of Anthropogenic Debris in Three Commercial Shrimp Species from South-Western Ionian Sea.Biology · 2022Article
- Can Microplastics Influence the Accumulation of Pb in Tissues of Blue Crab?International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Rapid fragmentation of microplastics by the freshwater amphipod Gammarus duebeni (Lillj.).Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Further studies in translatable model systems are needed to predict the impacts of human microplastic exposure.Open access journal of toxicology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Microplastics (MPs) are ubiquitous contaminants of the marine environment, and the deep seafloor is their ultimate sink compartment. Manipulative and field experiments provided evidence of the ingestion of MPs by deep-sea fauna, but knowledge of MPs' fate once ingested still remains scant. We provide evidence of MP partial retention and fragmentation mediated by digestion activity of a Norwegian langoustine, a good bioindicator for MP contamination of the deep sea. We report here that MPs in the intestines were more abundant and significantly smaller (up to 1 order of magnitude in surface) than those in the stomachs. Our results show that the stomach can act as a size-bottleneck for ingested MPs, enhancing the retention of larger particles within the stomach and promoting fragmentation into smaller plastic debris, which is then released in the intestine. Our results provide evidence that the langoustine is responsible for the fragmentation of MPs already accumulated in sediments through its scavenging activity and digestion. These findings highlight the existence of a new peculiar kind of "secondary" MPs, introduced in the environment by biological activities, which could represent a significant pathway of plastic degradation in a secluded and stable environment such as the deep sea.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.