BU Undergrad Researchers Find Microplastic Pollution in Seagrasses
BU Undergrad Researchers Find Microplastic Pollution in Seagrasses
Plastic pollution in the ocean has now invaded all marine food chains in the form of microplastics, found in seagrasses for the first time.
In the fall of 2017, Hayley Goss and Jacob Jaskiel were in Belize collecting seagrass blades from underwater meadows in the warm, shallow coastal waters of the western tropics. Goss and Jaskiel, student researchers at Boston University, weren’t thinking about plastic pollution in the ocean when they put on their snorkel gear and dived down to the seafloor, snipping away at the seagrasses—a species called T. testudinum—swaying in the underwater breeze of the currents. Instead, they were thinking about salad dressing.