Can microplastics be ingested by water-fleas, bugs or worms?
Updated: Dec 2, 2021
Microplastics are ubiquitous. All living forms appear to be in contact with microplastics or nanoplastics, by direct or indirect ingestion, adhesion or adsorption to body tissues. Most research is addressed to marine organisms but freshwater is taking up interest by the scientific community.
Here, we are concerned with the transfer from one organism to another within the food chain, briefly touching on the potential consequences for human health. How the toxicity of microplastics is evaluated and how toxic can microplastics be to living freshwater organisms is critically evaluated in this manuscript. This is an extensive peer-reviewed literature on a range of researched organisms, including among others: microalgae and fish.