Scientists have discovered that microplastics are infesting the Arctic ice algae that many forms of sea life rely on for food.
, Arctic ice algae has become infected with microplastics, threatening the creatures that feed on the algae.
The new study shows that the algae found beneath the Arctic ice have much higher concentrations of microplastics than the surrounding seawater. Researchers say when the algae die, clumps of them carry the microplastics out to the deep sea, which could explain the high concentrations of microplastics found in sediment out there.
Prior to this research, scientists only knew that microplastics somehow concentrate in the ice and then are released into the water when it melts. Now, though, this discovery shows that the Arctic ice plays an important part in how microplastics are moving around the deep sea in those regions of our world.The big problem here is the threat that these microplastics pose not only to the sediment of the deep sea, but also to the sealife that relies on that algae for sustenance.
However, when the summer months roll around, and the Arctic ice melts, the algae clumps up, dying, and sinks to the bottom, taking the microplastics with it. Because the microplastic-ridden algae are heavier, and sink straight to the bottom. This, the researchers say, explains why concentrations of microplastics in the sediment are so high at the edge of the Arctic ice.
Alongside posing a threat to the animals that feed on it, these high concentrations of microplastics mean that any sealife caught for food by the peoples of the Arctic could pose a threat to human life, too. When humans eat the sealife that has eaten microplastic-infected algae, they risk contamination by the chemicals in the plastics.
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