Plastic Waste in the Amazon Forest: What Is the Future of the Ecosystem Services Provided by the Local Bats?

Microplastics (MPs) have become an environmental concern, and studies with humans and different animals are being carried out and improved. Thus, the objective of the present work was to verify the ingestion of PMs in bats from the Brazilian legal Amazon. Therefore, the entire digestive (esophagus to the anus) and respiratory (trachea to the lungs) systems of 81 individuals of bats of 25 different species were analyzed separately. This is the first report of microplastics in Amazonian bats, among the analyzed bats, 95.06% showed contamination by PMs; the digestive system was the one with the highest contamination and the fibers were the only form found. Ingestion and inhalation of plastic waste can happen through direct or indirect contact with contaminated air, water or food. With the verification of contamination by PMs, mainly in the digestive system, future works can analyze their feces to verify the amount of PMs that are being excreted.