Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Artigo Acesso aberto Produção Nacional Revisado por pares

BIBTEX RIS

Three-dimensional distribution of plastic pellets in sandy beaches: shifting paradigms

2014; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 4; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/srep04435

2045-2322

Alexander Turra, Aruanã Bittencourt Manzano, Rodolfo Jasão Soares Dias, Michel Michaelovitch de Mahiques, Lucas Barbosa, Danilo Balthazar-Silva, Fabiana T. Moreira,

Recycling and Waste Management Techniques

Plastic pellets are worldwide contaminants that accumulate in the ocean, especially in sandy beaches, where their historic standing-stock quantification relies on surface sediment samples. We demonstrated these particles present a three-dimensional instead of a simple along-across shore distribution, being found as deep as 2.0 m, with surface layers accounting for <10% of the total abundance in the sediment column. This gradient seemed to be more related to oceanographic rather than anthropic processes, suggesting a general pattern whose applicability to microplastics and sedimentary environments as a whole should be investigated. This poses criticism in the exactness of standing-stock records and demands urgent discussion of sampling protocols.