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Article

Screening for Microplastic Uptake in an Urbanized Freshwater Ecosystem: Chondrostoma nasus (Linnaeus, 1758) Case Study

by
Angela Curtean-Bănăduc
1,*,†,
Claudia Mihuţ
1,
Alexandru Burcea
1,
Grant S. McCall
2,
Claudiu Matei
3 and
Doru Bănăduc
1,*,†
1
Applied Ecology Research Center, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, RO-550012 Sibiu, Romania
2
Center for Human-Environmental Research (CHER), New Orleans, LA 70118, USA
3
Faculty of Medicine, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, RO-550012 Sibiu, Romania
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Water 2023, 15(8), 1578; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15081578
Submission received: 8 March 2023 / Revised: 13 April 2023 / Accepted: 13 April 2023 / Published: 18 April 2023
(This article belongs to the Section Biodiversity and Functionality of Aquatic Ecosystems)
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Abstract

:
The feeding characteristics of the nase, based on its mouth morphology and feeding behavior related to aquatic habitat substrata sediments make this fish a biological uptake vector for microplastics in freshwater ecosystems. Fibers may have limited absorption through the gastrointestinal tract therefore unlikely to be found in fish gastrointestinal tissue and muscle tissue. The presence of microplastic fibers in the gastrointestinal content is proof of how difficult it is for these fibers to become embedded in other organs. The absence of microplastic fibers in muscle tissue and gastrointestinal tissue is key information for microplastic fabrication and management in aquatic ecosystems. The majority of fish have relatively low levels of microplastics; however, a few individuals have a higher dose. This is true for all types of microplastics analyzed, with the exception of fish that had just one microplastic present in the analyzed matrix. The microplastics are not concentrated in the fish muscle tissue, gastrointestinal tissue and gastrointestinal content in relation to fish age, which may be due to their different mobility in the ecosystem, or due to the recent appearance of this type of contamination and the scale at which microplastics bioaccumulate. Such a relatively common fish species must be included in the assessment and monitoring systems of the Eurasian lotic systems. The risks involved include the transfer of the freshwater environments microplastics into human tissues via the food web of fishing species with the nase as a key basis.

1. Introduction

At the moment, the ecosystem suffers under an extremely complex matrix of stressors that are the driving role in qualitatively and quantitatively changing the freshwater ecosystems and biota. Their capacity to offer sustainable products and services to human society is significant, one of the main categories of these identified stressors being water pollution in general [1,2,3,4].
Among the high diversity of pollutants, microplastics are one of the 21st century’s greatest environmental problems since they are so ubiquitous. The presence and impact of microplastics in the aquatic environment have lately become some of the most important research topics put on the international research table of high interest due to the strongly negative effects on environment nonliving and living elements, including in fish and humans [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. In addition, once they are dispersed into the environment, they are very difficult to remove, making their way into drinking water and aquatic food sources, harming the environment as well as human health. It is of great significance to identify organisms that have a high level of biological capacity to ingest bio-accumulate, and transfer microplastics through trophic networks in detrimental ways. Plastic production has reached record levels, with more than 350 million tons produced between 2010–2020 [15]. The exponential growth of the production of plastics began in the 1960s [16], and their use in all sectors of the economy and improper disposal have led to their spread, making their presence ubiquitous [17]. This situation coincides with consumer demand among an ever-growing world population, which is exacerbated by a lack of suitable waste management [18]. As a result, plastic pollution is now a common feature of aquatic ecosystems not only in populated areas but even in our planet’s remote areas [19].
Every year, about 4% of the plastic waste generated worldwide ends up in the ocean [20,21,22]. What exactly happens with the substantial missing fraction of plastics, especially microplastics, on their way from continental hydrographic contexts to the ocean is relatively poorly understood.
Microplastics are defined as plastic fragments with dimensions of less than 5 mm [23] and generally result from the degradation of plastic waste. Microplastics can be categorized according to their source of origin: primary microplastics used, for example, in personal care products, and secondary microplastics resulting from the degradation of larger pieces [24].
The negative effects of microplastics on humans and other organisms are generated by their structure and size, producing wounds to the digestive and respiratory systems by ingestion or inhalation due to their small size. They can also be transported to other organs through the circulatory system. Also added to such physical damage is the chemical impact of substances that are adsorbed on the surface of microplastics and that are released due to their increased lipophilicity in the body [24,25,26,27,28]. The significance of alluvial systems as transport vectors for terrestrial plastic debris has been neglected for a long time. It is now known, however, that flowing water often tends to have high concentrations of a variety of plastics with differing chemical compositions, physical properties, and sizes. Above all, microplastic fragments smaller than 5 mm in diameter pose a complex risk to lotic ecosystems all over the world. Amongst other effects, these particles are ingested by various aquatic organisms, leak endocrine-disruptive compounds, and act as vectors for waterborne contaminants, pathogens, and alien species [29]. The impacts of microplastics originating within terrestrial ecosystems and washing into aquatic systems are now major environmental concerns [30,31]. This fact underscores important questions concerning the roles of a wide variety of abiotic and biotic components of lotic systems in terms of the transport, retention, sharing, and deviation of microplastics. For big quantities of microplastic debris, the terrestrial ecosystems are considered the main sources, and aquatic ecosystems are aggregate spaces, where water-associated chemical, mechanical, biological, and ecological degradation characteristics, making them smaller and smaller and transporting them downstream [32], trapping them in sediments, and fish could easily ingest these tiny materials, which are similar to the zooplankton size for example [33].
Exactly how important biologically mediated plastic transport might be is, in general, unknown, and it is only a presumption in the literature that biological processes are responsible for the uptake and exporting of a significant portion [34]. Also, till now, the relatively few and for sure incomplete diverse initiatives and scientific approaches in highlighting the fish as sentinels of urbanization impacts in aquatic ecosystems induce the necessity of such innovative studies, which should address specific issues related to urbanization [35]. For the needed spatially and temporally extended monitoring [36] and management systems, the diversification of monitoring vectors and elements is obviously needed.
There are significant gaps in knowledge concerning large geographical areas in which freshwater fish species have not been studied in terms of microplastic contamination. For example, in Romania, which detains over 29% of the Danube Basin surface, only a single study has been done examining the concentrations of microplastics and this only in sediments from the Danube River to the Black Sea [37].
Elsewhere in Europe, numerous studies have detected high concentrations of microplastics within freshwater aquatic sediment systems: 100–629 particles/kg from the Antuã River, Portugal [38], 250–300 particles/kg at Urban Lake in the United Kingdom [39], 4000 particles/kg in the Rhine-Main River, Germany [40], but much lesser research was done in Romania [37], 24–620 particles/kg in the Danube River. There are also several key studies of microplastics in freshwater fish: in France [41], Switzerland [42,43], the UK [44,45], Belgium [46], Germany [47], and Poland [48].
The Danube River basin is shared by 19 countries, including 79 million people of different cultures and socio-economic systems, which make it the world’s most international river [49], as well as a very complex area to be properly managed sustainably. In the Lower Danube Basin, traces of humans’ activities date to at least the Middle Pleistocene and over the millennia, the negative effects of these activities have become increasingly acute and complex in the region, especially in terms of the ecological status of fisheries [50,51,52].
The Danube Basin is well-known historically as an important area for the richness and diversity of its fisheries [53,54]. This includes it’s all Danubian countries’ sub-basin habitats and ecosystems, which are characterized by a high level of overall biodiversity, including fish [55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73].
The Transylvanian Depression, to which the Mureş River basin mainly belongs, is a well-individualized geographical and ecological area bordered by the Carpathian Mountains. Over 7,000,000 people occupy this huge geographical depression, significantly transforming it through their activities. This region includes numerous Danube tributaries of different orders, fish habitats, trophic webs, species, and communities, all of which are negatively affected under these circumstances [74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84].
Fish are an ideal taxon for environmental assessment and monitoring, including for the presence of plastics [41,45,85,86,87,88,89,90,91]. Fish are widely consumed by humans as a prevalent source of protein worldwide [92]. In addition, fish are a well-known intermediate trophic link between other ecosystem components and are one of our food sources [93,94,95,96]. Different fish organ tissues were selected in this study as logical places to search for the presence of microplastics.
The fish species selected for this research was the common nase, a protected freshwater, benthopelagic, potamodromous species [54] listed in Appendix III of the Bern Convention. Its flesh is tasty [97], and the nase is commonly consumed by humans in the study area. Its sharp, low, slit-like mouth is a perfect tool for scraping away the algal growth on substrata, also ingesting detritus, debris, and diatoms, as well as other small particles such as those coming from anthropogenic sources [54,98]. This scraping “vacuum cleaner” mouth morphology makes this fish species for the study of microplastic particles present in lotic environments.
The hypothesis of the research is that the nase upper highlighted biological and ecological characteristics facilitate this species’ capacity to collect and ingest microplastics in lotic ecosystems affected by urbanization impacts in terms of these microplastics’ presence and spreading, and the aim of the study is to reveal this species capacity to be used as a biological uptake vector fish species for screening/signaling microplastics in these ecosystems, based on a Mureş River sector study case.

2. Materials and Methods

The 100 m lotic sector selected for the fish sampling was 100 m downstream of the urbanized area of the Alba-Iulia locality (63,536 people) sewage water plant discharge point in the Mureş River, located further downstream from the main Mureş River confluences with Arieş, Târnava, and Ampoi Rivers. The sediment samples were collected with a steel grab sampler from 20 cm deep, from 2 sections, 1 at the first upstream point where the first fish was caught and the second at the last downstream point where a fish was captured. Upstream from the sampling area, the Mureş River passes through large agricultural, industrialized, and urbanized areas.
After local fisherman capture, the adult Chondrostoma nasus were stunned, measured, weighed, euthanized (by decapitation), and dissected. After harvesting, the samples were wrapped in aluminum foil, labeled, and frozen at −20 °C. They were transported at the same temperature and stored until the analysis at −50 °C.
For the extraction of microplastics, samples of sediment and those from the 12 Chondrostoma nasus fish were analyzed. Each individual was dissected so that the gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), the gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT) were analyzed. For GIC, we did not recover enough material and analyzed the whole content. For GIT and MT, we normalized the quantity to the highest possible sample mass common between all the individuals so that we could have a good microplastic recovery.
Before the extraction, the instruments were rinsed with acetone. The staff wore laboratory coats, and the extraction was carried out in a closed room without air currents and in a HEPA-filtered microbiological cabinet to avoid contamination of the samples with microplastics from the air.
Two grams of sediment (SED), 1 wet weight (ww) gram of the sample (GIT and MT), and the whole GIC were weighed from each individual in 50 mL glass tubes. We added 20 mL of 30% hydrogen peroxide to the samples. The tubes were covered with aluminum foil to avoid microplastic contamination from the air. The samples were incubated for 7 days at 50 °C in the oven and vortexed periodically.
After 7 days, the tubes were removed from the oven and allowed to reach room temperature. The tubes were centrifuged at 2000 rpm for 2 min. The contents of the tubes were filtered through fiberglass filters on the vacuum system. The filters had 1 um pores. The filters were left to dry at 50 °C. After their complete drying, 3 mL of the hydrogen peroxide was added and left to act for 1 h at 50 °C. Filters were rinsed on the vacuum system with 40 mL ultrapure water and left in the oven until completely dry.
Arround 1 mL Nile Red 0.001 mg/mL solution was added, to cover the entire surface of the filter, and left for 15 min at room temperature. The filters were rinsed on the vacuum system with 60 mL ultrapure water and then left to dry overnight in the oven.
After the filters dried completely, they were put on the transilluminator, and pictures were taken using a camera with the following parameters ISO 200, F6.3, with an exposure time of 1/2 s and a focal length of 45 mm.
The counting of microplastics was done after a modified method by Prata et al. [99] using the image analysis software ImageJ (https://imagej.nih.gov/ (accessed in 2 February 2022)). Using the mentioned method and with modifications presented in this article, we also determined the recovery percentage for artificially generated microplastics derived from a block of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) to be 112.5%.
The graphical presentation of data pertaining to different types of microplastics was done using GraphPad Prism 8.0.2. We used the Krusal-Wallis test with Dunn’s multiple comparison correction implemented in the GraphPad Prism 8.0.2 software using the adjusted p values (p < 0.05 considered significant). These nonparametric tests are appropriate since Shapiro-Wilk and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests demonstrated that the data is non-normally distributed [100].
We have employed Spearman’s rank-order correlation to assess the correlation between the presence and quantity of microplastics and fish measurements using the corrplot package in R 3.5.2 to generate the correlograms.
The following reagents and instruments for microplastic extraction were used: 50 mL glass tubes, aluminum containers (neoLab, Sibiu, Romania), fiberglass filters with a diameter of 50 mm (Hahnemühle, Sibiu, Romania), Nile Red (Sigma-Aldrich, Sibiu, Romania), ethanol absolute (Chimreactive, Sibiu, Romania), ultrapure water (Promochem, Sibiu, Romania), oxygen peroxide (Chemical, Sibiu, Romania), acetone (Promochem, Sibiu, Romania), an oven (Memmert, Sibiu, Romania), a centrifuge (Nüve NF 800R, Sibiu, Romania), a vortex (VWR, Sibiu, Romania), a vacuum system (Phenomenex, Sibiu, Romania), a trans illuminator (Clare Chemical, Sibiu, Romania), and a camera (Canon EOS M6 Mark II, Sibiu, Romania). All the equipment was bought from a local dealer.

3. Results

We analyzed the muscle tissue (MT), gastro-intestinal tissue (GIT), and gastro-intestinal content (GIC) of 12 Chondrostoma nasus (Linnaeus, 1758) individuals. The values are presented in Table 1 alongside their length, weight, and condition factor (K = 100 × Weight/Length × 3). For GIC, we have analyzed the entire content to examine whether the quantity of microplastics is directly correlated with the quantity of GIC matter. We did this in order to determine if the individuals accumulate microplastics in their GI tract or if they are evenly distributed between different quantities of GIC. In addressing whether microplastics accumulate in the different analyzed matrix (Figure 1), we investigated whether there is a direct correlation between the number of microplastics and the length, weight, and condition factor of the analyzed fish.
Table 2 reports our findings concerning the frequencies of microplastics in MT, GIT, GIC contexts and sediment. In the two analyzed river sections, the amount of microplastics varies between 11 pieces of microplastics per 2 g of sediment and 93 pieces of microplastics per 2 g of sediment. We classified the presence of microplastics into the following three groups: particles, fibers, and fragments. In the sediment, the largest amount of microplastics is particles, followed by fragments and fibbers. We have determined the concentration of microplastics in order to determine whether they have a higher concentration between different individuals. This information is presented in Table 3.
In our classification of microplastics (particles, fibers, and fragments), we determined that no fibers are present in MT and GIT (Table 2 and Table 3, Figure 2).
Based on the results shown in Figure 3, we have determined that the presence and concentration of microplastics in fish matrices are random and may be more influenced by the location in which the fish were sampled than the size and weight of the fish. This random character of microplastic contamination makes the source of sampling a more important topic of research due to habitat contamination more than anything else. The only strong positive correlation is between the concentration of fibers from the GIC and particles from the GIT. One interesting observation is that the fish length is inversely correlated with fragments of microplastics from the GIC.
The Feret diameter of the analyzed particles is presented in Table 4. It is clear that the highest Feret diameter is for a microplastic in the shape of a fiber, while the lowest is found for a microplastic in the shape of a particle. There appears to be no barrier for particles and fragments when related to their dimension, while for fibers, it is clear from their absence that not even the smallest ones are not being transported from the GIC to the organism.

4. Discussion

In microplastics study, in the context of fish chemical exposure by the ingested plastics of concern from the aquatic habitat substrata sediments, there is an imperative call for seriously reassessing fish species characteristics knowledge in terms of their value as ecological indicators and as human food risks, since political strategies and general consumers orientation might be based on such information using sound updated research results.
Chondrostoma nasus, an important food for many humans in many areas, has natural feeding characteristics based on its mouth morphology and feeding behavior related to aquatic habitat substrata sediments which make it a biological uptake vector of microplastics in freshwater ecosystems.
For the common nase, the lack of microplastic fibers found in the muscle tissue (MT) and gastrointestinal tissue (GIT) samples was to be expected. Fibers may have very low levels of absorption through the gastrointestinal tract and would be very rare in the fish tissues. Their presence in the gastrointestinal content (GIC) is proof of how difficult it is for these types of microplastics to be found embedded in other organs (Table 2 and Table 3). This would make fibers the least problematic of the three types of microplastics encountered in this study. However, research on the chronic effects that these fibers, and microplastics in general, have on the affected individuals of all fish species has to be done to obtain a complete picture of this fish-microplastics issue. For the moment, we do not know which species these types of microplastics are affecting, and, most importantly, this type of research is only at its beginning.
In Figure 1 and Figure 2, it is evident, based on the shape of the violin plot with a thicker base that the majority of individuals present a smaller number of microplastics and that few individuals have a higher dose. This is true for all the types of microplastics analyzed, with the exception of individuals that had just one microplastic present in the analyzed matrix.
Figure 3 shows that the present microplastics are not more or less concentrated in the sampled fish MT, GIT, and GIC in relation to fish age (length and weight). This could be due to the period of appearance of this type of contamination and the fact that it is relatively recent in comparison with the bioaccumulation of other substances or with the fish’s mobility in the ecosystem.
Of interest for the method selected in this research is the glass phase of the plastics that were analyzed. Some of the polymers that can be found have a lower glass phase than 50 °C that was used during the extraction—which would have the effect of melting the polymers. In this study, we were not able to determine the type of plastics. We are confident that the microplastics that survived the treatment are indeed present, and the use of 50 °C digestion for a prolonged time does not reduce the importance of finding microplastics in the nase fish species from the studied river. The removal of biological material from samples is an important aspect in the correct determination of microplastics, so the use of a digestion step is necessary to obtain conclusive results. The use of H2O2 for digestion is proposed as a standard by Prata et al. [101] because it has little effect on the integrity of polymers. Using 50 °C in digestion and drying steps, the number of plastics that can be lost due to low glass transition temperature is lower than the possibility of obtaining overestimated results due to the non-removal of organic matter.
It is important to highlight that in fish, the microplastics, which retain and contain hazardous chemicals, are not only taken up, passed along the intestinal lumen and excreted but also retained in different tissues. Most of the microplastics found were particles, followed at a distance by fragments, while fibers were only present in GIC.
In this context, Chondrostoma nasus, a relatively common and conservational important fish species, is proposed here as a sentinel fish species in urbanized lotic sectors where the microplastics are present and spread, but not only. This fish species must be included in regular assessment and monitoring systems for Eurasian rivers and streams where it is present in relation to the identification of microplastics. This speaks more broadly to the presence of microplastics in freshwater benthic environments through their appearance in different organs and their potential transfer to human organ tissues through fish consumption, especially in urbanized lotic ecosystem sectors.

5. Conclusions

Chondrostoma nasus was shown to be, based on its biological and ecological characteristics, a perfect uptake vector of microplastics for sustaining freshwater ecosystems assessment, monitoring, and management systems with key data.
Microplastics, which contained highly hazardous chemicals, not only passed along the intestinal lumen and were excreted, increasing the mobility of these substances in ecosystems but also are retained in different tissues, a fact which also constitutes a direct hazard for humans as unhealthy food.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, A.C.-B., A.B. and D.B.; Data curation, A.C.-B., C.M. (Claudia Mihuţ) and A.B.; Formal analysis, A.C.-B., C.M. (Claudia Mihuţ), A.B., G.S.M., C.M. (Claudiu Matei) and D.B.; Funding acquisition, A.C.-B.; Investigation, A.C.-B., C.M. (Claudia Mihuţ), A.B. and D.B.; Methodology, A.C.-B., A.B. and D.B.; Project administration, A.C.-B.; Resources, A.C.-B.; Software, A.B.; Supervision, A.C.-B., A.B. and D.B.; Validation, A.C.-B., A.B., G.S.M. and C.M. (Claudiu Matei); Visualization, A.C.-B., C.M. (Claudia Mihuţ), A.B. and D.B.; Writing—original draft, A.C.-B., C.M. (Claudia Mihuţ), A.B., G.S.M., C.M. (Claudiu Matei) and D.B.; Writing—review & editing, A.C.-B., A.B., C.M. (Claudiu Matei) and D.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu and Hasso Plattner Foundation research grants LBUS-IRG-2021-07.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The experimental protocols were approved by the appropriate committee of the Science Faculty of the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

All the primary information and data are available upon request from the corresponding author.

Acknowledgments

Project financed by the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu and Hasso Plattner Foundation research grants LBUS-IRG-2021-07. The authors are grateful to Gheorghe Roxana, for graciously providing the initial Nile Red solution that we used for the method development in the Applied Ecology Research Center, Faculty of Sciences, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

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Water 15 01578 g001 550
Figure 1. Violin plots of microplastics in common nase individuals. (A)—total number of microplastics. (B)—microplastics based on the analyzed matrix weight. The red dotted line represents the median, the staggered dots are the data points, and the letters above the groups denote statistically significant differences (p < 0.05); gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), the gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT).
Figure 1. Violin plots of microplastics in common nase individuals. (A)—total number of microplastics. (B)—microplastics based on the analyzed matrix weight. The red dotted line represents the median, the staggered dots are the data points, and the letters above the groups denote statistically significant differences (p < 0.05); gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), the gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT).
Water 15 01578 g001
Water 15 01578 g002 550
Figure 2. Violin plots of types of microplastics in nase individuals. (A)—total frequency of microplastic types. (B)—microplastic types based on the analyzed matrix weight. The red dotted line represents the median, the staggered dots are the data points, and the letters above the groups denote statistically significant differences (p < 0.05); gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), the gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT).
Figure 2. Violin plots of types of microplastics in nase individuals. (A)—total frequency of microplastic types. (B)—microplastic types based on the analyzed matrix weight. The red dotted line represents the median, the staggered dots are the data points, and the letters above the groups denote statistically significant differences (p < 0.05); gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), the gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT).
Water 15 01578 g002
Water 15 01578 g003a 550Water 15 01578 g003b 550
Figure 3. Spearman’s rank-order correlograms highlighting the microplastic correlations. Positive (1) and negative (–1) correlations are represented with color gradients, while the p values are represented with asterisks (*** p < 0.001, * p < 0.05). NA represents situations where there were not enough values to compute the correlation; gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT). Subfigure (A)—total microplastics found, subfigure (B)—total microplastics found by type, subfigure (C)—microplastics/g, subfigure (D)—microplastics/g by type.
Figure 3. Spearman’s rank-order correlograms highlighting the microplastic correlations. Positive (1) and negative (–1) correlations are represented with color gradients, while the p values are represented with asterisks (*** p < 0.001, * p < 0.05). NA represents situations where there were not enough values to compute the correlation; gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT). Subfigure (A)—total microplastics found, subfigure (B)—total microplastics found by type, subfigure (C)—microplastics/g, subfigure (D)—microplastics/g by type.
Water 15 01578 g003aWater 15 01578 g003b
Table
Table 1. Chondrostoma nasus measurements; gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), the gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT).
Table 1. Chondrostoma nasus measurements; gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), the gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT).
Chondrostoma nasusMT (g ww)GIT (g ww)GIC (g ww)Length (cm)Weight (g) K
Minimum1.001.000.4224230264.37
Maximum1.011.013.1536550583.33
Mean1.011.001.0431.83437.5457.90
Median1.011.000.7533.5450465.86
Standard deviation0.010.000.753.9186.0472.22
Table
Table 2. Presence of microplastics in Chondrostoma nasus individuals and in the sediments; sediment (SED), gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), the gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT).
Table 2. Presence of microplastics in Chondrostoma nasus individuals and in the sediments; sediment (SED), gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), the gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT).
MicroplasticsTotal MicroplasticsTotal ParticlesTotal FibersTotal Fragments
MTMinimum2101
Maximum201802
Mean7.647.1801.67
Median7702
Standard deviation5.215.0100.47
GITMinimum1101
Maximum131301
Mean4.454.801
Median3401
Standard deviation3.994.0200
GICMinimum2211
Maximum20720214
Mean29.8328.7512.25
Median11.510.512
Standard deviation54.6653.3201.3
SEDMinimum111041
Maximum9375414
Mean5242.527.5
Median5242.527.5
Standard deviation57.9845.962.839.19
Table
Table 3. Concentration of microplastics in Chondrostoma nasus individuals; gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), the gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT).
Table 3. Concentration of microplastics in Chondrostoma nasus individuals; gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), the gastrointestinal content (GIC) and muscle tissue (MT).
MicroplasticsMicroplastics/g wwParticles/g wwFibers/g wwFragments/g ww
MTMinimum1.991.0001.00
Maximum19.8417.8602.00
Mean7.587.1201.66
Median6.936.9001.98
Standard deviation5.164.9600.47
GITMinimum0.990.9900.99
Maximum12.9412.9400.99
Mean4.444.7800.99
Median2.993.9700.99
Standard deviation3.974.0000
GICMinimum1.301.300.320.95
Maximum130.72127.572.402.53
Mean26.0624.971.401.88
Median15.4513.911.442.03
Standard deviation33.0632.360.930.63
Table
Table 4. The Feret diameter of the analyzed microplastics; gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), gastrointestinal content (GIC), and muscle tissue (MT).
Table 4. The Feret diameter of the analyzed microplastics; gastrointestinal tissue (GIT), gastrointestinal content (GIC), and muscle tissue (MT).
MicroplasticsMicroplastics (µm)Particles (µm)Fibers (µm)Fragments (µm)
MTMinimum80.7580.750198.84
Maximum740.52719.280740.52
Mean227.91214.620437.78
Median196.47188.460427.71
Standard deviation135.40120.460197.26
GITMinimum69.1269.120550.38
Maximum557.86557.860550.38
Mean251.04244.810550.38
Median196.54192.570550.38
Standard deviation142.26136.8300
GICMinimum67.7767.77433.96167.33
Maximum1236.38701.051236.38875.66
Mean261.45250.80906.41382.91
Median226.64223.08977.64364.44
Standard deviation150.64125.68385.80219.60
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Curtean-Bănăduc, A.; Mihuţ, C.; Burcea, A.; McCall, G.S.; Matei, C.; Bănăduc, D. Screening for Microplastic Uptake in an Urbanized Freshwater Ecosystem: Chondrostoma nasus (Linnaeus, 1758) Case Study. Water 2023, 15, 1578. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15081578

AMA Style

Curtean-Bănăduc A, Mihuţ C, Burcea A, McCall GS, Matei C, Bănăduc D. Screening for Microplastic Uptake in an Urbanized Freshwater Ecosystem: Chondrostoma nasus (Linnaeus, 1758) Case Study. Water. 2023; 15(8):1578. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15081578

Chicago/Turabian Style

Curtean-Bănăduc, Angela, Claudia Mihuţ, Alexandru Burcea, Grant S. McCall, Claudiu Matei, and Doru Bănăduc. 2023. "Screening for Microplastic Uptake in an Urbanized Freshwater Ecosystem: Chondrostoma nasus (Linnaeus, 1758) Case Study" Water 15, no. 8: 1578. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15081578

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