Steve Cofone, UR - What are microplastics and should I even care?

     

Hello everyone, this endeavor I have taken on has been very interesting, to say the least.
I have found a plethora of information on micro-plastics, but not very much research has been done on how much is actually finding their way into our marine animals, or if it is even there at all.

Microplastics under an electron microscope*

*http://stjohns.ifas.ufl.edu/SEA/microplastics/index.html






Most of the research I am finding is done by water sampling. Here is a great interactive map I found at
 https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1fPC629x59mvyVO98Cbb33RuORzc&ll=29.735128650339902%2C81.1403476878906&z=10This is based on water samples, black=0 found, blue=1-5, green=6-10, orange=11-20 and red=20+ plastic samples found in the water samples taken, most of these were actually done by volunteers.

I have reached out to Maia McGuire who is the NE Florida Sea Grant Extension agent. She will be my main source of information and I plan to run my project through her to get her thoughts and use her experience and knowledge. I will invite her to view my blog and get her opinion, this connection with Maia will be key in a successful project I believe.
As far as methods/materials, as of right now it looks like I will be coming up with this on my own. I feel confident that Maia will be able to help me in this area. I will continue to search for other research done in the area of marine life, the DSC library doesn't have that information but I will not stop there, I will continue to search. Google Scholar and UF will be a possible source.
Although I haven't found methods on my actual Independent Research Project, I am able to use some of the methods used in other projects such as water sampling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_ew876ZybU&feature=youtu.be This is a Utube video put out by UF which will help ID what are and what aren't microplastics.

There is an awareness project here in Florida sponsored by UF and Maia McGuire
Which I will be joining. 

                                                                                   

Also, I did find a great guide to microplastic Identification here at
http://stjohns.ifas.ufl.edu/sea/documents/MERI_Guide%20to%20Microplastic%20Identification.pdf which will be a great source of information for me.
The more I look into this, the more I am getting interested and excited about my project. I feel the work I am doing here can make a real difference, which is extremely exciting and rewarding to me.