Microplastic ingestion in commercial fish species Boops boops, sardine Pilchardus and Engraulis encrasicolus in the western Mediterranean sea: MEDIAS SURVEY
Microplastic ingestion was assessed for three commercial fish species in the western Mediterranean Sea: Boops boops, Sardina pilchardus and Engraulis encrasicolus during the 2015 Spanish MEDIAS survey. Gastrointestinal tracts of 183 fish from 16 sites were examined. A total of 42 microplastics were found in the stomach contents of 31 individuals from all three species. B. boops was found to have ingested the most items (27%). No significant differences between abundance of ingested microplastics and spatial distribution of the sites were found, although it does appears microplastics are common in the food web of each species along the eastern coast of Spain
