Correction to: Microplastics in seawater: sampling strategies, laboratory methodologies, and identification techniques applied to port environment.

The article Microplastics in seawater: sampling strategies, laboratory methodologies, and identification techniques applied to port environment.

Microplastics in seawater: sampling strategies, laboratory methodologies, and identification techniques applied to port environment.

The European Interreg Italy-France 2014-2020 Maritime Project SPlasH! (Stop to Plastics in H2O!) focused on the study of microplastics (MPs) in the marine port environment to evaluate their presence, abundance, and mechanisms of diffusion to the open sea. In the framework of this project, a worldwide review of 74 studies was carried out, providing an overview of MP investigation techniques, focusing on sampling strategies, laboratory methodologies, and identification of MPs collected in seawater, and specifically evaluating their applicability to the marine port environment. Nets were the most commonly used device for MP surface sampling, but their use can be difficult in narrow spaces within the port basins, and they must be coupled to discrete sampling devices to cover all port basins. In the laboratory, density separation (NaCl, ZnCl2, NaI, sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)), filtration (polycarbonate, polyamide, glass, cellulose, ANOPORE inorganic membrane filters), sieving, visual sorting, and digestion methods (acidic, enzymatic, alkaline, oxidative) were used to separate MPs from seawater. Digestion becomes essential with water samples with great inorganic and organic loads as deriving from a port. Although many studies are based only on visual MP identification under a microscope, analytical identification techniques unequivocally determine the particle nature and the identity of the plastic polymers and are necessary to validate the visual sorting of MPs. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is the most used analytical identification technique.

Baseline evaluation of metal contamination in teleost fishes of the Gulf of Tigullio (north-western Italy): Histopathology and chemical analysis.

Metals, whether essential (Cu, Zn, Cr, Fe, Mn) or non-essential (Al, As, Cd, Ni, Pb, Hg) for organism metabolism, occur naturally in the marine environment and their abundance can increase due to the presence of human activities. In this study, fish were used as bio-indicators, to determine a correlation between the bio-accumulation of metals in muscle and gill tissues and the health status of fish. The study area was the Gulf of Tigullio (north-western Italy), which is impacted by various sources of metal contamination. Histopathology served as a significant tool to investigate possible alterations in gills, one of the main organs involved in fish physiology. Results highlighted some correlations between certain metals (e.g. Pb, Ni) and gill alterations (e.g. epithelial hyperplasia, epithelial lifting), providing baseline data from a pool of different fish species, which can be used for comparison purposes in further studies.