The ingestion of plastic debris has been studied in many marine fish species, although comparisons between species can be difficult due to factors thought to influence ingestion rates, such as habitat preference, feeding behaviours and trophic level. Sardines are found internationally in many coastal environments and represent a potential sentinel species for monitoring and comparing marine plastic exposure rates. We conducted a pilot study, examining the rate of plastic ingestion in 27 commercially caught sardines (Sardinops sagax) from a low populated coastal region of Western Australia. A total of 251 potentially anthropogenic particles were extracted by chemical digestion of the gastrointestinal tract and classified visually. Fibres were the dominant type of material recovered (82.9%), with both yellow (39.8%) and black (32.7%) coloured particles commonly observed. A subset of 64 particles (25.5%), were subject to Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to identify polymer composition. This chemical characterisation identified seven plastic items (polypropylene, nylon and polyethylene) and a variety of cellulose-based material that was further examined and classified as natural or semi-synthetic. The mean plastic ingestion rate was 0.3 ± 0.4 particles per fish, suggesting Western Australian sardines ingest relatively low concentrations of plastic when compared to international sardine populations examined using similar methodologies. Despite comparatively low concentrations, plastic and semi-synthetic material are still being ingested by sardines from a low populated coastal region demonstrating the ubiquitous nature of the marine debris problem.

中文翻译：

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来自西澳大利亚法国人湾的沙丁鱼（Sardinops sagax）的塑料摄入凸显了无处不在的鱼的问题

许多海洋鱼类对塑料碎片的摄入进行了研究，但由于被认为会影响摄入率的因素，如栖息地偏好、摄食行为和营养水平，物种之间的比较可能很困难。沙丁鱼在国际上的许多沿海环境中都有发现，是监测和比较海洋塑料暴露率的潜在哨兵物种。我们进行了一项试点研究，检查了来自西澳大利亚人口稀少的沿海地区的 27 条商业捕获的沙丁鱼（Sardinops sagax）的塑料摄入率。通过胃肠道的化学消化，共提取了 251 个潜在的人为颗粒，并进行了视觉分类。纤维是回收材料的主要类型 (82.9%)，黄色 (39.8%) 和黑色 (32. 7%) 通常观察到的有色颗粒。对 64 个粒子 (25.5%) 的子集进行傅里叶变换红外 (FTIR) 光谱分析以确定聚合物组成。这种化学特性鉴定了七种塑料制品（聚丙烯、尼龙和聚乙烯）和多种纤维素基材料，这些材料经过进一步检查并归类为天然或半合成材料。每条鱼的平均塑料摄入率为 0.3 ± 0.4 个颗粒，这表明与使用类似方法检查的国际沙丁鱼种群相比，西澳大利亚沙丁鱼摄入的塑料浓度相对较低。尽管浓度相对较低，但来自人口稀少的沿海地区的沙丁鱼仍在摄入塑料和半合成材料，这表明海洋垃圾问题无处不在。