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Global distribution of microplastics and its impact on marine environment—a review

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Abstract

Microplastics are the major environmental health hazards spotted in almost all the marine habitats and biota of world. The earlier research on microplastics have mainly focused on studying abundance and distribution as well as impacts on organisms, while the existing review articles have reviewed on any one of the above aspects or the environmental fate of microplastics. The current review focuses on all the above facets thereby bringing out the incompleteness in information globally in the respective facets. Our findings suggest that among 192 countries of the world, only 22.9% (44) of the countries have carried out research regarding microplastics, while impacts on organisms have mostly targeted fish (38%), whereas studies on other highly affected organisms such as turtles (1%) are not well documented. Therefore, we suggest expanding research in all the above aspects of microplastics considering that there are several pristine marine environments and organisms that are yet unexplored. Quantifying research in these regards would enable to propose a microplastic threshold level and formulate control measures to reduce the use of plastics and its subsequent threat to the marine environment.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge authorities of Annamalai University for providing necessary facilities and also like to give a special thanks to Prof. T. Balasubramanian, former Director and Dean of CAS in Marine Biology, Annamalai University.

Funding

This study was supported by a research grant from Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), National Centre for Coastal Research, Government of India (Project File No. MoES/ICMAM-PD/ME/CAS-MB/53/2017).

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  1. CAS in Marine Biology, Faculty of Marine Sciences, Annamalai University, Parangipettai, 608502, India

    Nithin Ajith, Sundaramanickam Arumugam, Surya Parthasarathy, Sathish Manupoori & Sivamani Janakiraman

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Ajith, N., Arumugam, S., Parthasarathy, S. et al. Global distribution of microplastics and its impact on marine environment—a review. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 25970–25986 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09015-5

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