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© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy has been extensively used in microplastic (MP) pollution research since 2004. The aim of this review is to discuss and highlight the recent advances in FTIR (spectroscopy and chemical imaging) techniques that are used to characterize various polymer types of MPs and to trace their fate and transport in different environmental matrices. More than 400 research papers dealing with FTIR techniques in MP pollution research, which are published between January 2010 and December 2019, have been identified from the Scopus and Web of Science databases. The MPs present in sediment, water (marine and freshwater), biota, air/dust, waste water treatment plants and salt are further classified according to (1) characterization and identification, (2) weathering and aging, (3) ecotoxicology, and (4) analytical methods. The results revealed that the ATR-FTIR technique is mostly used to identify and characterize the MPs found in water and sediment. The µFTIR (FTIR imaging) is extensively used to study the ingestion of MPs in biota (both marine and freshwater). In this article, we have summarized the current knowledge of application of FTIR spectroscopy to MP research and provided insights to future challenges for understanding the risk of MPs.

Feeding of non-indigenous cyclopoid copepod Oithona davisae in natural coastal phytoplankton assemblages from the Sevastopol Bay, the Black Sea, in late July and in late November 2013 and in artificial phytoplankton assemblage (mixture of 5 cultured microalgae) have been studied in laboratory experiments using flow cytometry. Three distinct main clusters of phytoplankton (2 mu m < ESD < 20 mu m) were identified in the natural water samples in both sampling period: photosynthetic picoeukaryotes, nanophytoplankton and nanoplanktonic cryptomonads (NanoPE). Female O. davisae grazed on all 3 phytoplankton groups but the highest ingestion rate in terms of carbon was on NanoPE with the value of 0.29 +/- 0.03 mu g Cprey cop-1 d-1 in July. Low abundance of 3 phytoplankton groups in late November resulted in a very low but significant carbon ingestion on cryptophytes (0.008 +/- 0.002 mu g Cprey cop-1 d-1) than on the other groups. Clearance rates and electivity indices confirmed positive selection only for cryptophytes from natural phytoplankton assemblages, and for cryptophyte strain IBSS-Cr54 and Tetraselmis suecica from artificial plurialgal mixture. Highest daily specific carbon-rations of O. davisae females were found on cryptophytes (ESD 7 - 12 mu m): up to 135% and 184% body carbon d-1 in late July and on artificial phytoplankton assemblage, respectively.

PERSEUS project aims to identify the most relevant pressures exerted on the ecosystems of the Southern European Seas (SES), highlighting knowledge and data gaps that endanger the achievement of SES Good Environmental Status (GES) as mandated by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). A complementary approach has been adopted, by a meta-analysis of existing literature on pressure/impact/knowledge gaps summarized in tables related to the MSFD descriptors, discriminating open waters from coastal areas. A comparative assessment of the Initial Assessments (IAs) for five SES countries has been also independently performed. The comparison between meta-analysis results and IAs shows similarities for coastal areas only. Major knowledge gaps have been detected for the biodiversity, marine food web, marine litter and underwater noise descriptors. The meta-analysis also allowed the identification of additional research themes targeting research topics that are requested to the achievement of GES. 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license., peer-reviewed