Particles from the krill and bead blanks were found to be unaffected by the enzyme digestion protocol. Visually, beads from the stock suspension appeared similar to the bead blanks. As did the whole beads and fragments isolated from the krill and krill blanks. The distributions of particle sizes from experimental and blank samples were very similar, despite unequal sample sizes (Supplementary Fig. 3). Overall it was determined that krill were responsible for fragmenting the beads.