TORONTO: Studies conducted by James Cook University researchers revealed coral, turtles and sea birds that ingested micro plastics suffered blockages to their digestive tracts and had their feeding patterns affected.
Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, Mia Hoogenboom, said corals were non-selective eaters, meaning they ate anything available to them.
“Coral tends to feed on a variety of different food particles such as plankton and sediment,” she said.
“They take whatever particles are available to them and can take plastics and mistake them for their normal food.”
So far, researchers have conducted trials on only one type of coral, Genis Savia, a mound-shaped coral also known as dipsastrea.
“We ran experimental trials just over a month ago and measured corals in different measuring chambers that had different levels of micro plastics,” Dr Hoogenboom said.
“We collected colonies from the reef and exposed them to different levels of plastic within the chambers to measure to see if they were ingesting the micro plastics.”
The study co-author, James Cook University PhD student Kathryn Berry, said during the testing different micro plastics were found, including “polystyrene and polyethylene, although only in small amounts”.
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