Microplastics accumulation in functional feeding guilds and functional habit groups of freshwatermacrobenthic invertebrates: Novel insights in a riverine ecosystem

Microplastics pose a major threat for aquatic ecosystems, but the contamination dynamics in organisms inhabiting freshwater ecosystems is still little studied. Largely used for biomonitoring, macrobenthic invertebrates provide a pivotal trophic resource for many fish and bird species. In this study, we investigated the microplastics contamination in a macrobenthic invertebrate community (2772 individuals belonging to 33 taxa identified) in a high-plain riverine ecosystem (Vipacco River, northeast Italy) and compared the amount of microplastics accumulated in functional feeding guilds/functional habit groups.Microplastics (cellulosic fibers associated with polyester) were found in 48.5% of the taxa, with the highest amount detected in the collectorgatherers,followed by predators. The collector-gatherers showed a significantly higher microplastic accumulation than the other functional feeding guilds,whereas there was no difference among the functional habit groups. Themain source ofmicroplastics pollution was most likely urban wastewater ischarge points located along the river. Our study reports a novel approach about microplastic pollution assessment in lotic environments, as it focuses into the microplastic contamination dynamics in an entiremacrobenthic invertebrate community perspective and underlines the need for further study.