Marine Pollution Bulletin xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Marine Pollution Bulletin

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/marpolbul

Review

Microplastics in the marine environment: Current trends and future

perspectives
Luís Gabriel Antão Barboza a,⇑, Barbara Carolina Garcia Gimenez b
a
CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil, 70040-020 Brasília, DF, Brazil
b
Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Center for Marine Studies (CEM), Coastal and Oceanic Systems Graduate Program (PGSISCO), Av. Beira-Mar, s/n, 83255-976 Pontal do
Paraná, Pontal do Sul, Paraná, Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Over the last decade, the presence of microplastics on marine environments has become an important
Available online xxxx environmental concern and focus of interest of many researches. Thus, to provide a more integrated view
of the research trends regarding this topic, we use a scientometric approach to systematically assess and
Keywords: quantify advances in knowledge related to microplastics in the marine environment. The papers that we
Microplastic used for our assessment were obtained from the database Thomson Reuters (ISI Web of Science), between
Plastic pollution 2004 and 2014. Our results reveal the overall research performance in the study area of microplastics
Marine debris
present in the marine environment over the past decade as a newly developed research field. It has been
Emerging pollutants
recognized that there are several important issues that should be investigated. Toward that end, based on
the suggested directions on all papers reviewed, we point out areas/topics of interest that may guide
future work in the coming years.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
2. Materials and methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
3. Results and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
3.1. Characteristics of publication outputs, distribution of subject categories, and journals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
3.2. Geographic distribution of the authors and productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
3.3. Distribution of educational/research institutes and collaborative networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
4. Final considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
Appendix A. Supplementary material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00

1. Introduction Recently, research on the environmental impact of plastic waste

The accumulation of plastic and its debris in marine and coastal
environments is due to the intense and continuous release of this
pollutant into the environment (Possatto et al., 2011; de Sá et al.,
2015). The improper disposal of this waste combined with its
growing production and inefficiency management, leaves no doubt
about its potential impact and threat to these environments.
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: gabrielbarbboza@gmail.com (L.G.A. Barboza).
has added a new dimension with the discovery and investigation of
microplastic particles (Law and Thompson, 2014). The presence of
small plastic fragments in the open ocean was pointed out for the
first time in the 1970s (Carpenter and Smith, 1972). In the follow-
ing decades, with accumulating data on ecological consequences of
such debris, the topic has received increasing research interest
(Andrady, 2011). However, it was not until 2004 that R.C.
Thompson and collaborators coined the term ‘‘microplastics.’’ In
their paper, ‘‘Lost at sea: Where is all the plastic?,’’ Thompson
et al. (2004) were the first researchers to use that term in the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.06.008
0025-326X/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Barboza, L.G.A., Gimenez, B.C.G. Microplastics in the marine environment: Current trends and future perspectives. Mar.
Pollut. Bull. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.06.008
2 L.G.A. Barboza, B.C.G. Gimenez / Marine Pollution Bulletin xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
scientific literature, to describe microscopic plastic particles in the
marine environment. Since then, growing efforts have been made
to document the presence of microplastics and their impact on this
ecosystem.
Although the defined size of these microparticles has varied
between different studies over the past decade, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now defines
the term ‘‘microplastic’’ as fragments smaller than 5 mm in diam-
eter (Arthur et al., 2009). In the marine environment, microplastics
can be generated from primary sources and enter directly into the
environment as plastic pellets that were used as raw material in
the plastic industry and/or in hygiene and personal care products
(Fendall and Sewell, 2009; Cole et al., 2011). They may also enter
indirectly from secondary sources, such as fragments and fibers
obtained from the fragmentation of larger plastic debris, resulting
from photothermal degradation, oxidation, and/or mechanical
abrasion (Andrady, 2011).
Regardless of their origin, plastics have been manufactured to
be durable, a fact that allows them to remain for years in the envi-
ronment. This is particularly true in the marine environment,
where the plastic degradation may take decades (Hidalgo-Ruz
et al., 2012). In the marine environment, the existence of
microplastic debris, including primarily classes of polyethylene
(PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), and polyvinyl chloride
(PVC) (Andrady, 2011), proliferate, migrate, and accumulate in nat-
ural habitats from pole to pole and from the ocean surface to the
bottom of the sea (Ivair do Sul and Costa, 2014).
With a quick and remarkable trajectory of interest shown by the
academic community, and by non-governmental and regional mar-
itime organizations – that have developed programs and guideli-
nes for assessing marine litter, including microplastics – the
research in this area has been accompanied by an almost exponen-
tial increase in the number of publications. Despite this, large gaps
still need to be elucidated, particularly those referring to the origin,
transport, interactions, and fate of microplastics in the marine
environment (Cole et al., 2011; Oliveira et al., 2013).
Therefore, we present herein a scientometric analysis that is
aimed at systematically evaluating and quantifying advances in
knowledge of microplastics in the marine environment over the
past ten years of investigations (2004–2014), thus providing a
more integrated view of the research trends regarding this topic.
Our aim was to answer the following questions: (i) To what extent
did the scientific literature on microplastics in the marine environ-
ment grow over the past decade? (ii) In which journals were these
studies published? (iii) What have been the questions addressed in
the studies published so far? (iv) From which part of the world are
the researchers working in this area? (v) What is the proportion of
independent and collaborative studies in the past ten years? (vi)
How many educational/research institutes are involved in research
on microplastics in the marine environment? (vii) How is the inter-
national collaborative network organized between countries and
educational/research institutes? (viii) What are the gaps and/or
future research perspectives in this area? Answering these ques-
tions will enable us to construct a research profile related to the
presence of microplastics in the marine environment, which may
serve as a potential guide for future investigations.
2. Materials and methods
The study was conducted in November 2014 through a biblio-
graphic survey using the Thomson Reuters database (ISI Web of
Science, apps.webofknowledge.com), and it examined papers pub-
lished between 2004 and 2014. The keyword ‘‘microplastic⁄’’ was
used as search criteria to retrieve valid data records in the data-
base. The asterisk at the end of the word ensured the inclusion of
Please cite this article in press as: Barboza, L.G.A., Gimenez, B.C.G. Microplastics in the marine environment: Current trends and future perspectives. Mar.
Pollut. Bull. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.06.008
the term in both singular and plural forms. We considered publica-
tions on marine environments in journals covered by the ISI Web
of Science, in which the aforementioned term appeared in the title
and/or keywords of the manuscripts. Therefore, in this review we
not included technical reports and academic theses.
Conventional analysis of the scientific results, subject cate-
gories, journals, authors, countries, and educational/research insti-
tutes was performed by using descriptive statistics, and it was
processed with Microsoft Excel software. The geographical world-
wide distribution of the authors was plotted using QGIS software
version 2.6.1 (Sherman et al., 2014).
In order to observe the temporal trends in relation to the focus
of researches, the variable ‘‘keywords’’ was ordered over time by
the Principal Components Analysis (PCA). To achieve this goal, in
addition to the keywords of the authors, also was used as unit of
analysis ‘‘Keywords Plus’’ obtained through the ISI Web of
Science platform. In total 365 keywords were related. Of these,
we selected 24 for analysis that had a frequency equal or greater
than five, considering all years (2006 to 2014). The years 2004
and 2005 were removed, because at the first there was no mini-
mum frequency of keywords and at the second were unpublished
papers related to the topic. To remove the influence of the number
of studies in different periods (current periods have more pub-
lished papers), we organized the matrix as follows: proportion of
number of papers with a keyword in a given period by total num-
ber of papers in the same period. The PCA was based on the corre-
lation matrix (Legendre and Legendre, 1998), and was performed
using the PC-Ord 5.01 (McCune and Mefford, 1999).
The type of collaboration was determined based upon the affil-
iation of the authors. The term ‘‘national collaborative articles’’ was
assigned when researcher affiliations belonged to the same coun-
try/institute, whereas the term ‘‘international collaborative arti-
cles’’ was assigned when articles were co-written by researchers
from multiple countries/institutes. As visualization tools for net-
work analysis, UCINET software version 6.5 (Borgatti et al., 2013)
and NetDraw version 2.1 (Borgatti, 2002) were used to assess the
correlation with regard to the international collaboration between
countries and educational/research institutes.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Characteristics of publication outputs, distribution of subject
categories, and journals
From 2004 to 2014, the annual production of publications
showed an increasing trend for studies on microplastics in the
marine environment (Fig. 1). This trend was observed mainly in
2011 and 2013, when the annual growth rate of publications
Fig. 1. Number of papers on microplastics published between 2004 and 2014 and
expected growth.
 L.G.A. Barboza, B.C.G. Gimenez / Marine Pollution Bulletin xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
Fig. 2. Journals used to publish studies on microplastics in the marine environment over the past decade (2004–2014).
reached 6.5% and 18%, respectively. From these publications, it is
clear that this increase was mainly due to the increase in the num-
ber of studies carried out in microcosms. The aim of those studies
was to understand the correlation between the ecological conse-
quences of microplastics exposure in the marine environment, as
well as the relationship between these particles and the adsorption
of different pollutants and/or environmental contaminants.
Studies on microplastics in the marine environment have been
published in a wide range of journals, many of which are consid-
ered high-impact journals (Fig. 2). Over the past decade, a large
number of publications were found in four main journals, which
together were responsible for 62.5% (68 articles) of all published
articles. These journals were as follows: Marine Pollution Bulletin
(30.3%), Environmental Science & Technology (17.5%),
Environmental Pollution (9.2%), and Marine Environmental Research
(5.5%).
The articles published in these journals sparked interest in
approaching different questions over the past ten years of research.
Briefly, the subjects that were mainly investigated by researchers
were related to the impacts of microplastics on the marine envi-
ronment, their ability to interact (sorption/desorption) with other
environmental contaminants, the quantification and characteriza-
tion of these plastic microparticles in marine and coastal environ-
ments, transport routes of microplastic debris and possible places
for their deposition, ingestion of microplastics by marine organ-
isms and their potential transfer between organisms of different
trophic levels, and the development of analytical techniques and
detection methods for the presence of microplastics in these
environments.
We observed a temporal trend involving the keywords associ-
ated with the analyzed papers (Fig. 3). The interpretation of
Fig. 3 is made from the overlap between Fig. 3a and b. As described
below, each number refers to a keyword. Fig. 3 shows a segregation
of keywords into two distinct groups along the first axis. In the first
group (I and IV quadrants), related to the years 2006, 2007, 2009,
2010 and 2012, the keywords are scarce and in general with broad
sense (e.g., marine environment). In the second group (II and III
quadrants), related to the years 2008, 2011, 2013 and 2014, the
Please cite this article in press as: Barboza, L.G.A., Gimenez, B.C.G. Microplastics in the marine environment: Current trends and future perspectives. Mar.
Pollut. Bull. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.06.008
3
keywords are more diverse and connected to more specific topics
(e.g., marine debris and marine litter). This indicates that the more
recently developed research involves different areas, with a ten-
dency of multi and interdisciplinary studies. Clearly, this is because
of the growing number of publications involving the theme ‘‘mi-
croplastics’’, especially in the last two years (2013 and 2014).
3.2. Geographic distribution of the authors and productivity
Regarding the research focused on microplastics in the marine
environment, researchers from different parts of the world have
contributed over the past decade to an increase in scientific knowl-
edge in the area. During this period, articles from 337 authors were
published. The main spatial clusters of authors working in this field
are spread over 33 countries and 135 different cities, with clearly
distinguishable clusters in the United States, Western Europe,
Oceania, and East Asia, in addition to several other smaller groups
in other parts of the world (Fig. 4).
In absolute terms, the United States alone has contributed the
most researchers; they can be found in 19 different American
cities. In relative terms, Western Europe houses most researchers
in the field (50.8%), spread in 66 different cities. The groups of
authors from Western European are mainly located in the United
Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Japan and South
Korea represent the main areas where authors are located in East
Asia.
3.3. Distribution of educational/research institutes and collaborative
networks
It is clear that collaborative networks between the different
institutes play an increasingly important role in scientific research;
this is also the case in the research field of microplastics in the
marine environment. Of the studies published in the past decade,
35.8% (39) were independent articles, i.e., published by a single
institution, while 64.2% (70) were inter-institutional collaborative
investigations, including national (44% or 62.9%) and international
(26% or 37.1%) collaborations (see Fig. 5).
4 L.G.A. Barboza, B.C.G. Gimenez / Marine Pollution Bulletin xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

Australia – AUS (A12), and AWI – Alfred Wegener Institute –

(a) DEU (A59) were the main institutes that also exhibited the ten-
dency to collaborate with other research centers.
The publication outputs showed that 81.3% (26) of the countries
established collaborative networks among themselves. China,
South Korea, Romania, Finland, Singapore, and the Netherlands
were the only countries in which the authors were not part of a
collaboration. As shown in Fig. 7, the UK was the main cooperation
partner with other countries, collaborating with 17 countries. This
was followed by the United States, which cooperated with 13
countries.
In the last decade, mainly in the past five years, the term ‘‘mi-
croplastics’’ entered in the popular lexicon (GESAMP, 2015). Even
so, we recognize that the history of these small plastic particles
present in ocean, dates back to early 1970s [see, e.g., Carpenter
et al. (1972) and Wong et al. (1974)], and that other term deriva-
tions may be found in the literature, such as ‘‘neustonic plastic par-
ticles’’ (used by the researchers cited above and others).
Although we consider in our analysis, only journal papers cov-
(b) ered by the ISI Web of Science, worth pointing out that the consid-
eration of microplastics by international agreements (e.g., RIO+20
and MSFD) as a specific indicator of litter pollution, and more gen-
erally the consideration of pollution by marine litter as a real con-
cern (e.g., Honolulu strategy, UNEP regional actions plans, MSFD
and GESAMP working group) has supported a number of studies
in the recent years (on distribution, methods, implementation of
monitoring, etc.). This clearly may explain the increase of publica-
tions. Therefore, it is important to highlight the role of political
decisions as a major factor in increased efforts of research and
activities, which aimed at minimizing the real problem of the pres-
ence of microplastics in marine environment. Such decisions
and/or initiatives must act to understand the dynamics and
impacts of the presence of this type of marine litter, and preventing
further inputs or reducing total amounts in the environment
(Eerkes-Medrano et al., 2015).
I 1 Mediterranean sea III 11 Ingestion As demonstrated in this study, there is an increased interest in
2 Marine environment 12 Plastic debris research on microplastics in the marine environment. The concen-
II 3 North Pacific 13 Debris trations of these microparticles in the environment are being
4 Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) 14 Transport reported worldwide (Claessens et al., 2013), including in areas that
5 Sea 15 Mytilus edulis are naturally protected [see, e.g., Batzan et al. (2014)], as well as
6 Marine debris 16 Marine Strategy Framework Directive more remote ones (Obbard et al., 2014). Although scientific evi-
7 Particles 17 Accumulation dence has quickly been reported in the literature regarding the fate
8 Environment 18 Chemicals of microplastics and their impact on these environmental systems,
9 Pollution 19 Sediment many critical issues are still poorly understood (Ivair do Sul and
10 Zooplankton 20 Marine litter Costa, 2014). Therefore, it is implicit that important questions
21 Coastal waters
regarding production, transport, fate, and the physical and chemi-
IV 22 Microplastics
cal effects of microplastics present in the marine environment
23 Infrared spectroscopy
should be investigated (Zarfl et al., 2011).
24 Plastic(s)
Due to their small size and presence in both pelagic and benthic
Fig. 3. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) with Pearson correlation coefficients ecosystems, a growing number of studies show that microplastics
(a) and scores (b), showing the temporal occurrence of keywords. The first and the are potentially bioavailable for ingestion by a wide range of organ-
second axis of PCA accumulated 24.79% and 20.32% of the total variance, isms (Browne et al., 2008; Cole et al., 2011). Several studies report
respectively.
that these particles may be ingested by invertebrates, e.g., poly-
chaetes, crustaceans, echinoderms, bryozoans, and bivalves, as
Over the past decade, 132 educational/research institutes pub- well as vertebrates such as fishes and birds, in addition to plankton
lished studies on microplastics in the marine environment. The and zooplankton organisms (Von Moos et al., 2012; Cole et al.,
collaborative network of active institutes established by the 2013; Ivair do Sul and Costa, 2014). Thus, it has been suggested
NetDraw program showed a complex collaborative relationship. that the intake of these microparticles can cause direct physical
The node size represents the degree of specific importance of a injuries and also facilitate the transfer of chemicals to organisms,
given institute within a collaborative network (Fig. 6a). In this including those intentionally incorporated during the manufactur-
way, the results show that the University of Plymouth – UK (A1) ing process, as well as environmental contaminants that could be
was, in the past decade, the flagship within the network, having absorbed on the plastic surface (Oliveira et al., 2013).
a strong correlation with 30 other research institutes (Fig. 6b). Therefore, microplastics can absorb persistent, bioaccumula-
The University of Exeter – UK (A46), IFREMER– FRA (A25), the tive, and toxic substances (PBT), including persistent organic pollu-
University of Edinburgh – UK (A13), ALGALITA – USA (A4), North tants (POPs) and metals (Rios et al., 2007; Gouin et al., 2011). Once
Carolina State University – USA (A45), the University of Western ingested, the absorbed pollutants may be transferred to marine

Please cite this article in press as: Barboza, L.G.A., Gimenez, B.C.G. Microplastics in the marine environment: Current trends and future perspectives. Mar.
Pollut. Bull. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.06.008
 L.G.A. Barboza, B.C.G. Gimenez / Marine Pollution Bulletin xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
Fig. 4. Spatial distribution of the authors of papers published in the past decade (2004–2014).
Fig. 5. Independent and collaborative production of articles per year (2004–2014).
organisms. The interactions between these compounds inside the
bodies of these marine organisms may alter the distribution, bio-
transformation, and/or toxicity of environmental contaminants.
This may lead to an increase in the concentration of contaminants
and the potential risk for these to be incorporated into superior
trophic chains, thus threatening the health of animals including
humans (Teuten et al., 2009; Hidalgo-Ruz et al., 2012; Oliveira
et al., 2013).
However, many of these effects and processes involving the
presence and accumulation of microplastics in the marine environ-
ment still remain to be elucidated, and the long-term conse-
quences are still unknown (Moore, 2008; Wright et al., 2013).
Therefore, the challenge of understanding all these issues is left
to future research. Based on the suggested directions in the discus-
sions of the all papers reviewed, in particular on the papers of Cole
et al. (2011), Ballent et al. (2013), Depledge et al. (2013), Wright
et al. (2013) and Lusher et al. (2014), we made a synthesis of
Please cite this article in press as: Barboza, L.G.A., Gimenez, B.C.G. Microplastics in the marine environment: Current trends and future perspectives. Mar.
Pollut. Bull. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.06.008
5
areas/topics of interest for future research on microplastics in the
marine environment, as bellows:
(1) Understand which are the marine organisms that are most
affected by the presence of microplastics.
(2) Evaluate the presence and effects of microplastics in the
marine environment through organisms used as sentinel
species, and apply new integrated monitoring tools.
(3) Determine the impact (mortality, morbidity, and/or repro-
duction) caused by microplastic ingestion by the marine
biota and evaluate what is the influence and impact of the
different forms and types of microplastics in marine
organisms.
(4) Understand the capacity and transport mechanisms of
microplastics and their contaminants through the marine
food chain via trophic interactions, as well as to estimate
the associated impact of these processes at the level of the
population and the ecosystem.
(5) Optimize and implement methodologies of high throughput
sampling of microplastics to better compare the results of
different studies and to develop methods to detect
microplastics present in the water and sediments.
(6) Evaluate what are the ecological consequences of exposure
to microplastics in marine environments, especially in criti-
cal areas such as biodiversity hotspots.
(7) Evaluate the consequences of microplastics for human
health.
(8) Increase the knowledge about the origin, path, fate, and
microplastic behavior in the water, including the effects of
fragmentation and bio-incrustation.
(9) Increase knowledge of the effects resulting from the concen-
tration of additives in microplastics over time, their bioavail-
ability, and the associated toxicological impact and the
persistence time of microplastics in the environment (Fig. 8).
4. Final considerations
The presence and accumulation of these microparticles in the
marine environment is a current and growing concern. In recent
6 L.G.A. Barboza, B.C.G. Gimenez / Marine Pollution Bulletin xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

Fig. 6a. Collaborative network between the educational/research institutes in studying microplastics in the marine environment (2004–2014). ⁄The complete list of
educational/research institutes can be found in Supplementary Material.

Fig. 6b. Collaborative network of the institute more active in studying microplastics in the marine environment over the past decade (2004–2014).

years, plastic pollution in the ocean, including microplastics, has
become a relevant environmental concern for scientists,
non-governmental organizations, rulers, and even for the lay peo-
ple. Scientometric analysis showed the overall research perfor-
mance in the study area of microplastics in the marine
environment over the past decade (2004–2014), as a newly
developed research field. This shows that this field has had a con-
tinuous growth of publications. Nevertheless, despite the great sci-
entific advances that were made over this period, more advanced
and in-depth studies are required to understand the majority of
the questions and processes that remain unknown. Therefore, the
contribution of the scientific community by way of additional

Please cite this article in press as: Barboza, L.G.A., Gimenez, B.C.G. Microplastics in the marine environment: Current trends and future perspectives. Mar.
Pollut. Bull. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.06.008
 L.G.A. Barboza, B.C.G. Gimenez / Marine Pollution Bulletin xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 7

Fig. 7. International collaborative network between countries in the past decade (2004–2014).

Fig. 8. Research aspects of interest future with regard to marine environment microplastics.

investigations to be carried out in the coming years will be funda-
mental in trying to understand the real impact of these emerging
micro-contaminants that are present in coastal and oceanic
systems.
Acknowledgments
The first author acknowledges financial support from
CAPES/Scholarship No. Bex 13568/13-2, under the Science without
Borders programme. The authors would like to thank the anony-
mous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to
improve the quality of the paper.
Appendix A. Supplementary material
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.
06.008.

Please cite this article in press as: Barboza, L.G.A., Gimenez, B.C.G. Microplastics in the marine environment: Current trends and future perspectives. Mar.
Pollut. Bull. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.06.008
8 L.G.A. Barboza, B.C.G. Gimenez / Marine Pollution Bulletin xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

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Please cite this article in press as: Barboza, L.G.A., Gimenez, B.C.G. Microplastics in the marine environment: Current trends and future perspectives. Mar.
Pollut. Bull. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.06.008