The DOI matches its Crossref record; 43 of the 43 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Fish Ingest Microplastics Unintentionally
Abstract
Microplastics (size of plastic debris <5 mm) occur in various environments worldwide these days and cause detrimental effects on biota. However, the behavioral responses of fish to microplastics in feeding processes are not well understood. In the present study, juveniles from four fish species and two common shapes of microplastics were used to explore fish feeding responses. We found swallowing-feeding fish ingested more pellets than filtering- and sucking-feeding fish. With high-definition and high-speed observational experiments, we found that all species did not actively capture microfibers; instead, they passively sucked in microfibers while breathing. Surprisingly, fish showed a rejective behavior, which was spontaneously coughing up microfibers mixed with mucus. Nevertheless, some of the microfibers were still found in the gastrointestinal tracts and gills of fish, while abundances of ingested microfibers were increased in the presence of food. Our findings reveal a common phenomenon that fish ingest microplastics inadvertently rather than intentionally. We also provide insights into the pathways via which microplastics enter fish and potential strategies to assess future ecological risk and food safety related to microplastics.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Lost at sea: where is all the plastic?
Thompson, R. C., Olsen, Y., Mitchell, R. P., Davis, A., Rowland, S. J., John, A. W. G., McGonigle, D., & Russell, A. E. (2004) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1094559 · Cited by 7,765
The Challenge of Micropollutants in Aquatic Systems
Schwarzenbach, R. P., Escher, B. I., Fenner, K., Hofstetter, T. B., Johnson, C. A., von Gunten, U., & Wehrli, B. (2006) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1127291 · Cited by 3,704
The plastic in microplastics: A review
Andrady, A. L. (2017) · Marine Pollution Bulletin · doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2017.01.082 · Cited by 2,372
Oyster reproduction is affected by exposure to polystyrene microplastics
Sussarellu, R., Suquet, M., Thomas, Y., Lambert, C., Fabioux, C., Pernet, M. E. J., Le Goïc, N., Quillien, V., Mingant, C., Epelboin, Y., et al. (2016) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1519019113 · Cited by 1,827
Plastic accumulation in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre
Law, K. L., Morét-Ferguson, S., Maximenko, N. A., Proskurowski, G., Peacock, E. E., Hafner, J., & Reddy, C. M. (2010) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1192321 · Cited by 1,377
Plastic ingestion by planktivorous fishes in the North Pacific central gyre
Boerger, C. M., Lattin, G. L., Moore, S. L., & Moore, C. J. (2010) · Marine Pollution Bulletin · doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2010.08.007 · Cited by 1,273
Browne, M. A., Niven, S. J., Galloway, T. S., Rowland, S. J., & Thompson, R. C. (2013) · Current Biology · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.10.012 · Cited by 1,160
A review of microplastics in table salt, drinking water, and air: direct human exposure
Zhang, Q., Xu, E. G., Li, J., Chen, Q., Ma, L., Zeng, E. Y., & Shi, H. (2020) · Environmental Science & Technology · doi:10.1021/acs.est.9b04535 · Cited by 1,064
Self-citationFoekema, E. M., De Gruijter, C., Mergia, M. T., van Franeker, J. A., Murk, A. J., & Koelmans, A. A. (2013) · Environmental Science & Technology · doi:10.1021/es400931b · Cited by 938
Plastic waste associated with disease on coral reefs
Lamb, J. B., Willis, B. L., Fiorenza, E. A., Couch, C. S., Howard, R., Rader, D. N., True, J. D., Kelly, L. A., Ahmad, A., Jompa, J., et al. (2018) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aar3320 · Cited by 857
Cited by
The bio-accumulation and -magnification of microplastics under predator-prey isotopic relationships.
Gao, S., Zhang, S., Feng, Z., Lu, J., Fu, G., & Yu, W. (2024) · Journal of Hazardous Materials · doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.135896 · Cited by 23
Metadata
- Authors
- Li, B., Liang, W., Liu, Q.-X., Fu, S., Ma, C., Chen, Q., Su, L., Craig, N. J., & Shi, H.
- Venue
- Environmental Science & Technology
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2021-07-23
- Volume
- 55
- Issue
- 15
- Pages
- 10471-10479
- ISSN
- 0013-936X (ISSN-L)
- 1520-5851
- OpenAlex
- W3183873586
- Cited by
- 319
- References
- 43
- FWCI
- 10.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Fish Ingest Microplastics Unintentionally. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1021/acs.est.1c01753
- The paper
- Li, B., Liang, W., Liu, Q.-X., Fu, S., Ma, C., Chen, Q., Su, L., Craig, N. J., & Shi, H. (2021). Fish Ingest Microplastics Unintentionally. Environmental Science & Technology. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.1c01753
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
