| Autor: |
Paterson HL; School of Agriculture and the Environment, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia. Harriet.Paterson@uwa.edu.au., Stead JL; School of Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre (Southampton), University of Southampton, European Way, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK. J.L.Stead@soton.ac.uk., Crutchett T; Oceans Institute and School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia. t.crutchett@gmail.com., Hovey RK; Oceans Institute and School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia. t.crutchett@gmail.com., Ford BM; School of Agriculture and the Environment, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia. Harriet.Paterson@uwa.edu.au., Speldewinde P; School of Agriculture and the Environment, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia. Harriet.Paterson@uwa.edu.au., Zapata-Restrepo LM; Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Southampton, University Road, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK. lmzr1f20@soton.ac.uk., Yanfang L; Key Laboratory of Geoscience Big Data and Deep Resource of Zhejiang Province, School of Earth Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China. 21938009@zju.edu.cn., Zhang X; Key Laboratory of Geoscience Big Data and Deep Resource of Zhejiang Province, School of Earth Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China. 21938009@zju.edu.cn., Cundy AB; School of Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre (Southampton), University of Southampton, European Way, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK. J.L.Stead@soton.ac.uk.; Hong Kong Branch of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, China. |
| Abstrakt: |
Plastic pollution is a global environmental and human health issue, with plastics now ubiquitous in the environment and biota. Despite extensive international research, key knowledge gaps ("known unknowns") remain around ecosystem-scale and human health impacts of plastics in the environment, particularly in limnetic, coastal and marine systems. Here we review aquatic plastics research in three contrasting geographic and cultural settings, selected to present a gradient of heavily urbanised (and high population density) to less urbanised (and low population density) areas: China, the United Kingdom (UK), and Australia. Research from each country has varying environmental focus (for example, biota-focussed studies in Australia target various bird, fish, turtle and seal species, while UK and China-based studies focus on commercially important organisms such as bivalves, fish and decapods), and uses varying methods and reporting units ( e.g. mean, median or range). This has resulted in aquatic plastics datasets that are hard to compare directly, supporting the need to converge on standardised sampling methods, and bioindicator species. While all the study nations show plastics contamination, often at high levels, datasets are variable and do not clearly demonstrate pollution gradients. |
