A combined field and laboratory study of microplastic uptake by the Snakelocks Anemone (Anemonia viridis), 2020.

This dataset contains the results from a combined field and laboratory study of microplastic uptake by the Snakelocks Anemone (Anemonia viridis). In October 2020, 48 anemones were collected at low tide by hand from Corbyn Head, Torquay, South Devon UK. A further 40 capture-bred anemones where collected from the Horniman Museum Aquarium, London, UK. Eight individual anemones were analysed for their microplastic contamination levels from the field. The remaining 80 were used to investigate the uptake of microplastics and the influence of food and temperature on that uptake. Anemones were digested after exposure or collection from the environment and the plastics enumerated. The environmental microplastics were also scored for the size, shape, colour. Their polymer was identified using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. This work was undertaken by scientists at the University of Exeter as part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) project MINIMISE (Current and Future Effects of Microplastics on Marine Shelf Ecosystems), funded under grant reference NE/S003975/1. MINIMISE aims to determine how microplastics and contaminants affect the functioning of marine shelf seas sediments and the organisms that live in them under different ocean chemistry conditions. It also aims to assist policy makers on determining how microplastics affect vulnerable habitats, aquaculture, fish spawning areas, fishing activities and other ecosystems.