Plastic debris, the majority of which is microscopic (<1mm), has been reported in every open ocean and many freshwater lakes and river. Microplastics enter aquatic habitats through a variety of sources, and are bioavailable to a wide range of vertebrates and invertebrates, resulting in many adverse health effects. Recently, efforts to quantify the amount of microplastic pollution in aquatic systems has increased, but few studies have explored how microplastic pollution directly effects the amount of microplastics that accumulate in an organism due to ingestion. Here we investigate whether the amount of microplastics available in the environment correlate with the amount of microplastics found in invertebrate tissues, as well as develop a novel method for extracting microplastics (10-38µm) from biological tissues.
