Microplastic Concentrations in Two Oregon Bivalve Species: Spatial, Temporal, and Species Variability

Authors

Britta Baechler, Portland State UniversityFollow
Elise F. Granek, Portland State UniversityFollow
Matthew V. Hunter, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Kathleen E. Conn, United States Geological Survey

Sponsor

Funding for this project was provided by Oregon Sea Grant (Award NA14OAR4170064), the Edward D. & Olive C. Bushby Scholarship, the OR American Fisheries Society, and the Portland State University Institute for Sustainable Solutions.

Published In

Limnology and Oceanography

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-12-2019

Subjects

Microplastics -- Environmental aspects, Microplastics -- Measurement, Microplastics -- Oregon -- Analysis

Abstract

Microplastics are an ecological stressor with implications for ecosystem and human health when present in seafood. We quantified microplastic types, concentrations, anatomical burdens, geographic distribution, and temporal differences in Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) and Pacific razor clams (Siliqua patula) from 15 Oregon coast, U.S.A. sites. Microplastics were present in organisms from all sites. On average, whole oysters and razor clams contained 10.95 ± 0.77 and 8.84 ± 0.45 microplastic pieces per individual, or 0.35 ± 0.04 pieces g⁻¹ tissue and 0.16 ± 0.02 pieces g⁻¹ tissue, respectively. Contamination was quantified but not subtracted. Over 99% of microplastics were fibers. Material type was determined using Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy. Spring samples contained more microplastics than summer samples in oysters but not razor clams. Our study is the first to document microplastics in Pacific razor clams and provides important coast‐wide data to compare microplastic burden across species, seasons, and sites.

Rights

© 2019 The Authors. Limnology and Oceanography published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Description

Data files supporting the research are available at https://doi.org/10.15760/esm-data.1

Locate the Document

https://doi.org/10.1002/lol2.10124

DOI

10.1002/lol2.10124

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/30382

Citation Details

Baechler, Granek, E. F., Hunter, V. M., & Conn, K. E. (2019). Microplastic Concentrations in Two Oregon Bivalve Species: Spatial, Temporal, and Species Variability. Limnology and Oceanography Letters.