Microplastics primarily provide habitats for benthic microalgae in Fujian coastal waters of China. Wang et al.
Description
This is raw data on epimicroplastic microalgae and phytoplankton communities. Samples were collected from three semi-enclosed bays—Dongshan Bay, Luoyuan Bay, and Quanzhou Bay—located in Fujian Province. Specifically, samples from Luoyuan Bay, Dongshan Bay, and Quanzhou Bay were collected in March 2021, April 2022, and May 2022, respectively. This dataset is composed of sampling dates, sampling locations, taxonomic information on phyla, genera, and species, and the cell density of microalgae.
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1 Field Sampling Floating microplastics (MPs) were collected using a surface manta trawl with a mesh size of ~330 μm and a steel frame opening of approximately 0.3 × 0.6 m. The trawl was deployed in surface waters (within 0.5 m depth) and maintained at a 20 m distance from the research vessel. The angle between the towrope and the vessel’s course was ~20°, minimizing interference with MPs distribution. The trawl was towed by the vessel at ~3 knots for 10 minutes; throughout towing, it remained afloat on the surface, with the lower portion of the steel frame submerged. The volume of water filtered was calculated using a flowmeter (HYDRO-BIOS D-FLOW) fixed to the trawl’s steel frame. At the end of trawling, the trawl was recovered onto the afterdeck and rinsed from the exterior with natural seawater to flush all retained material to the trawl’s bottom. Debris >5 mm in diameter was removed using a stainless-steel sieve, and the remaining material was transferred to a 1 L glass bottle. MPs samples were fixed with a 5% formaldehyde solution (37.0–40.0%, Xilong Scientific Co., Ltd.). Concurrently, 1 L of surface water was collected at each sampling site for phytoplankton identification and fixed with 15 mL of Lugol’s iodine solution (iodine ≥ 99.8%, Shanghai Macklin Biochemical Co., Ltd.; potassium iodide ≥ 99.0%, Xilong Scientific Co., Ltd.). 2 Sample Processing MPs ranging in size from 500 μm to 5 mm were selected using sterile steel tweezers, rinsed gently three times with sterile artificial seawater (salinity 30), and transferred to 10 mL glass vials containing 2 mL of sterile artificial seawater. Epimicroplastic microalgae (EMP-MA) were detached from MPs using an ultrasonic bath (300 W, 30 s) and rinsed four times with sterile artificial seawater; the wash solution was collected for microalgae identification. Phytoplankton samples were concentrated to 10 mL via sedimentation and stored in the dark. 3 Species Identification Cell counting and species identification were conducted using a 0.1 mL cell enumeration chamber (20 mm × 20 mm) under an inverted microscope (CKX41, Olympus Corporation, Tokyo, Japan). A subsample was acidified for further species identification. Acidified samples were mounted on clean glass slides or cellulose acetate filters, dried, and coated with a 10–20 nm gold layer using a Leica EM ACE200 coating system (Leica Microsystems, Wetzlar, Germany). Prepared samples were observed via scanning electron microscopy (SEM) (JEOL JSM 6390LV, Japan; TESCAN MIRA, Czech Republic) at 10–20 kV.
Institutions
- Third Institute of Oceanography SOA
- Xiamen University