Cheers! Let’s raise a nonalcoholic glass to krill, sharks, and potatoes

🦐 The Krill Spill

The ocean’s tiniest crustaceans just delivered a giant warning. According to a recent report, microplastics are affecting how Antarctic krill eat, permanently altering the marine food web. Science News’s Carolyn Gramling reports on this unsettling finding and its impact on ocean health.

🤮 Nature’s failed filter

Krill (Euphausia superba), the tiny shrimp-like creatures that make up the foundation of the Antarctic food chain, absorb a lot of plastics from their environment (just like the rest of us). Scientists knew that these small crustaceans readily ingest microplastics, but here’s the unsettling part: once they’ve eaten this unhealthy food they tend to expel what they’re eating from their mouths. This worries scientists because the krill might be regurgitating food even when they’re still hungry, potentially affecting krill populations for the food chain. What’s more, the plastic in this rejected meal is being chopped up into even smaller pieces, which may trigger health problems in sea life. This potential plastic puke time bomb could dramatically increase the complexity and cost of remediation.

📈 Algorithmic tides are rising

Increasing public awareness of the crisis of plastic in the ocean is bringing sophisticated, long-term monitoring and autonomous intervention to existing cleanup efforts.