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Review
. 2022 Jul 13;10(7):391.
doi: 10.3390/toxics10070391.

Occurrence of Natural and Synthetic Micro-Fibers in the Mediterranean Sea: A Review

Saul Santini  1 , Eleonora De Beni  1 , Tania Martellini  1   2 , Chiara Sarti  1 , Demetrio Randazzo  1 , Roberto Ciraolo  1 , Costanza Scopetani  3 , Alessandra Cincinelli  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Occurrence of Natural and Synthetic Micro-Fibers in the Mediterranean Sea: A Review

Saul Santini et al. Toxics. .

Abstract

Among microplastics (MPs), fibers are one of the most abundant shapes encountered in the aquatic environment. Growing attention is being focused on this typology of particles since they are considered an important form of marine contamination. Information about microfibers distribution in the Mediterranean Sea is still limited and the increasing evidence of the high amount of fibers in the aquatic environment should lead to a different classification from MPs which, by definition, are composed only of synthetic materials and not natural. In the past, cellulosic fibers (natural and regenerated) have been likely included in the synthetic realm by hundreds of studies, inflating "micro-plastic" counts in both environmental matrices and organisms. Comparisons are often hampered because many of the available studies have explicitly excluded the micro-fibers (MFs) content due, for example, to methodological problems. Considering the abundance of micro-fibers in the environment, a chemical composition analysis is fundamental for toxicological assessments. Overall, the results of this review work provide the basis to monitor and mitigate the impacts of microfiber pollution on the sea ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea, which can be used to investigate other basins of the world for future risk assessment.

Keywords: Mediterranean Sea; biota contamination; cellulose; chemical characterization; environmental pollution; fibers; microplastics; pollution.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Number of publications per year studying MPs in the environment, MPs in the Mediterranean Sea and MPs/fibers. Source: Web of Science Database.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Pie charts showing the relative abundance (%) of fibers, fragments, films and other shapes (i.e., spheres, pellets, sheets) in the literature data globally in biota (a) and water (b) from the Mediterranean Sea.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Most abundant colors in MFs present in the literature data from the Mediterranean Sea, both in the biota (a), and in seabed and seawater samples (b).
Figure 4
Figure 4
A comparison of the literature data of percentages frequency of different fiber lengths in biota and water samples from the Mediterranean Sea.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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