Is plastic on the menu of Antarctic fish?

Is plastic on the menu of Antarctic fish?

By Gabriel Erni Cassola

Source: swissinfo

4/21/2022

After roughly three weeks of sea voyage, the Polarstern research vessel arrived at our main sampling location in Antarctica. Sea ice and icebergs stretch as far as the eye can see, but plastics are not easily visible at first glance. To find out whether fish are ingesting microplastics, we need to look inside the fish, or rather inside their digestive tracts.

On our ship, each fish caught is dissected to remove the digestive tract, which is then stored for further analysis back in the laboratory in Basel. By the way, the fish are of course used for various other types of analyses. No part of the fish goes to waste. Our colleagues on board the Polarstern are taking blood and tissue samples from the liver, gonads, fins, muscles, eyes and the otoliths, which are small bones in the heads of the fish that help them with their balance.