[thanksforcoming]

From the report[1]:

"However, without the context of environmental sampling of microplastics (water and sediment) or investigations into the impacts of the chemicals ingested, it is not easy to understand the impact microplastic presence will have on biology, and subsequently ecology, of deep-sea organisms. Broadly, the important individual organism effects of microplastic ingestion are being investigated (albeit mostly with microbeads rather than the more commonly found microfibres) but, given the ubiquity of microplastics in our marine environments, research should start considering population and ecosystem level effects such as differential age/cohort survival causing demographic shifts, food/prey shifts, hazard to human foods, taxa specific vulnerability etc; this is a difficult task in any marine environment, most especially the deep-sea, regardless it is still an important challenge to undertake."

[1] http://www.nature.com/articles/srep33997