On January 17, 2020, researchers with Portland State University reported that sand crabs "... were found to have increased adult mortality and decreased reproductive success when exposed to plastic microfibers … [Sand crabs are] a dominant organism on sandy beaches from British Columbia to Baja California, Mexico … [They] eat by filtering small particles from the water [and] are considered indicator species because their health reflects the health of the ecosystem … The study https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/lol2.10137 found that with an increasing number of microplastic fibers internalized, crab mortality increased while the number of days that a crab held live/viable eggs decreased. Exposure to microplastics also caused variability in a crab's embryonic development rates …" - #SingleUsePlastic #FoodPackaging #PlasticWaste #PlasticPackaging #MicroPlastic #NanoPlastic