Effect of alternative natural diet on microplastic ingestion, functional responses and trophic transfer in a tri-trophic coastal pelagic food web.

The patchy distribution of microplastics (MP) and their size range similar to planktonic organisms, are likely to have major ecological consequences, through MP ingestion, food dilution, and transfer across trophic levels. Our study applied a community module using tritrophic food chain with zooplankton as prey, and a planktivorous seabass fry as predator. We conducted a series of feeding experiments and recorded the direct uptake of MP under six different concentrations ranging from 25 to 800 particles L.