The ingestion of microplastics and micro-particles by mangroves crabs is related to their feeding habits

Abstract

Mangroves are increasingly impacted by multiple sources of pollution, and plastic is not an exception. Crabs are a dominant component of the mangrove food web and play a critical role to maintain ecosystem functioning and health. Understanding the potential transfer of micro debris within these key organisms will help assessing the overall impact of plastic pollution at ecosystem scale. We quantified and characterized the micro particles found in the cardiac stomach and gill chambers of four species of crabs from three mangrove forests of Hong Kong. We observed a significant variability in abundance and types of anthropogenic micro-particles across sites and species. Interspecific differences proved to be strongly related to the role of each species in the food web and could also be explained by their peculiar feeding habits, with less selective species ingesting more particles. Interestingly, this trend seems inversely related to the trophic level of the crabs.