Abstract:
The Mediterranean Sea is a closed basin, which renews its waters once every 80 years, its
area represents 1% of the total worldwide marine area. However, it is affected by around 20 %
of the world's marine pollution. Although the state of current knowledge is not yet conclusive,
the Algerian coast is also affected by this type of pollution, which can affect vulnerable marine
organisms, among other things. Our study focused on the identification and quantification of
microplastics ingested by fish caught by small craft in Stidia and Oureah/ Mostaganem Coast.
The study was carried out on three species for each site sampling 10 individuals per
species. After dissection, the gastrointestinal contents of the sampled fish made it possible to
properly extract any ingested microplastics, which have been identified with a binocular
magnifying glass.
The results show that the fishes caught in Stidia beach present more plastic fibers than
those caught in Oureah beach. However, we were not able to confirm the visual identification
of the plastic fibers by the analysis of the chemical components using IR-Spectrophotometry
due to the unavailability of this equipment.
