Search

Microplastics are frequently detected in the gastrointestinal tracts of aquatic organisms worldwide. A number of active and passive pathways have been suggested for fish, including the confusion of microplastic particles with prey, accidental uptake while foraging and transfer through the food chain, but a holistic understanding of influencing factors is still lacking. The aim of the study was to investigate frequently suggested theories and identify relevant biotic factors, as well as certain plastic properties, affecting microplastic intake in fish. Four species of freshwater fish, each representing a different combination of foraging style (visual/chemosensory) and domestic status (wild/farmed) were exposed to different realistic plastic concentrations and polymer types with and without the provision of genuine food. As most previous investigations of microplastic uptake routes consider only particles large enough to be perceptible to fish, the potential for accidental intake via drinking water has been somewhat neglected. This route is evaluated in the current study using a model approach. The results show that visually oriented fish forage actively on microplastic particles that optically resemble their usual food, while fish with a predominantly chemosensory foraging style are more able to discriminate inedible food items. Even so, the accidental uptake of microplastics while foraging is shown to be relevant pathway, occurring frequently in both visual and chemosensory foragers alike. Several factors were shown to increase plastic uptake, including microplastic concentration in the water, foraging behaviour promoted by availability of genuine food, and fish size. Although both wild and farmed fish ingested microplastic particles, cultured fish showed less discernment in terms of colour and were more likely to forage actively on microplastics when no food was available. Drinking has been identified as a possible source of microplastic intake specifically for large marine fish species. Particles smaller than <5 µm can pass the gastrointestinal tract wall and bioaccumulation could arise when uptake exceeds release or when particles are assimilated in tissues or organs. The effects of accumulation may be significant, especially in long-living species, with implications for food web transfer and fish as food items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Der Schmerz is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The main aim of the paper is the investigation of a relation between the essential spectrum and the exponential decay at infinity of eigenfunctions of the lattice analogs of Schrödinger and Dirac operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central theme of the present paper are band and band-dominated operators, i.e. norm limits of band operators. In the first part, we generalize the results from [24] and [25] concerning the Fredholm properties of band-dominated operators and the applicability of the finite section method to the case of operators with operator-valued coefficients. We characterize these properties in terms of the limit operators of the given band-dominated operator. The main objective of the second part is to apply these results to pseudodifferential operators on cones in ℝ n which is possible after a suitable discretization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topics of this paper are Fredholm properties and the applicability of the finite section method for band operators on l p-spaces as well as for their norm limits which we call band-dominated operators. The derived criteria will be established in terms of the limit operators of the given band-dominated operator. After presenting the general theory, we present its specifications to concrete classes of band-dominated operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper provides stability considerations of spline approximation methods for multidimensional singular operators. This paper should be regarded as a first step in establishing spline approximation methods for pseudodifferential operators on manifolds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]