PROJECT HIGHLIGHT
This project will leverage specimen collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County to develop a comprehensive understanding of microplastic pollution in California and how it has varied across both space and time. This study will be the first of its kind in the Pacific and will establish a baseline for informing existing and future management decisions in California.
PROJECT SUMMARY
Microplastics are a pervasive problem for the world’s oceans, but most studies focus on their impact on a single species or, at best, a single site. Changes in microplastic pollution over time are little documented. This leaves us without a clear picture of the scope of the problem.
This project will sample microplastics from the gastrointestinal tracts of marine fish specimens preserved in the collection of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. By examining samples that span the eight decades since 1940, and that are drawn from the full extent of the California coastline, the study will reveal both where and when plastics entered the ocean.
The resulting data will provide a more comprehensive picture of how microplastics in California impact coastal food webs. The study will help reveal which species consume microplastics and to what degree; how microplastic ingestion varies across the state geographically; which types of plastics are consumed; and how all of these factors have changed over time. This will be the first temporal microplastic study in the Pacific Ocean and will create a much-needed baseline dataset for future studies and management decisions.