Abstract
Microplastics (MPs) have become an environmental threat due to their persistence, ubiquity, and potential harm to wildlife. Once dispersed in the ecosystem, MPs can sorb environmental pollutants such as organic compounds, metals, and emerging contaminants. This pollution has caused concern in the scientific community. A lot of research is focusing on MPs’ role as vectors for toxic chemicals in the biota. The aim of this chapter is to provide a review of studies of toxic pollutants adsorbed on MPs and present an overview of their ability to leach, bioaccumulating in the organisms. Moreover, the effects that the combination of MPs and adsorbed compounds have on the biota are explored. The importance of MPs as a vector for environmental pollutants is still mainly under discussion. The ecotoxicological consequences of the ingestion of contaminated MPs are still mostly understudied and require further research to be fully understood. Future research challenges include the risk assessment of long-term exposition to different combinations of MPs-contaminants, especially under environmentally relevant concentrations, and the determination of the relative importance of MPs-mediated input of pollutants in biota, taking into account the other exposure pathways.
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Pelamatti, T., Cardelli, L.R., Rios-Mendoza, L.M. (2022). The Role of Microplastics in Bioaccumulation of Pollutants. In: Rocha-Santos, T., Costa, M.F., Mouneyrac, C. (eds) Handbook of Microplastics in the Environment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39041-9_18
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