Cascais and Sines corals are incorporating plastics

MARE researcher Sónia Seixas is the first author of the article “Incorporation of abandoned and lost fishing gear into the structure of Dendrophyllia ramea in the Atlantic coast of Portugal”, recently published in the scientific journal Marine Pollution Bulletin. This article also includes the participation of MARE researchers Joaquim Parrinha and Filipa Bessa, and describes a phenomenon that has never been recorded before: the incorporation of fishing nets and wires into the skeleton of corals.

Easily identifiable by fishermen due to their aniseed smell, Dendrophyllia ramea corals are animals that live all over the Mediterranean and have a vulnerable conservation status. Caught in 2022 by fishermen from Sines and Cascais, some corals of this species were handed over to the team of researchers with synthetic fishing lines and nets embedded in their skeletons. 

“I stuck to the literature, I read everything there was,” Sónia Seixas explains to Jornal da Noite. “There are many reports of nets covering corals and being harmful to corals, but corals embedded inside, (what you see is the wire going in and out), this is the first time, as far as we know, that it has been reported worldwide.” When studying this phenomenon, it was found that around 6% of the specimens had filaments in their structure, raising questions about their potential impact on coral health. The MARE researcher says that “it can affect growth, it can alter the coral's physiology, it can alter the reproductive system. We don't really know at the moment what these embedded threads can do, but they can be very harmful.”

At the moment, the researchers are mapping these corals off the Portuguese coast, so that protection zones can be created, and they also stress the urgent need to communicate these issues, both to fishermen and to all interested parties.

To see the interview with Jornal da Noite on SIC, click HERE

To access the article, click HERE