Determinación de microplásticos presentes en sedimentos de la zona intermareal de los esteros en Manta-2024.

Abstract

Plastic pollution on beaches represents a threat to marine and coastal ecosystems. These plastics, when fragmented into smaller particles such as mesoplastics and microplastics, cause impacts on marine fauna, interfering with their feeding, motor and reproductive functions. In this thesis we determine the type of plastics in the vicinity of the mouth of the Manta River at Los Esteros beach, Manta, Ecuador. These plastics were obtained by density separation and reduction of organic matter with nitric acid and sodium hypochlorite, then characterized by stereoscopy. The abundance of plastics found is 0.34 plastics/m2, between the 4 transects no significant differences were found (p > 0.05). The clean coast index (CCI) shows that the beach is in a moderate range of plastic contamination, with the exception of the transect closest to the mouth which gives a value of 11.2 being this beach dirty.