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Close encounters on a micro scale: microplastic sorption of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their potential effects on associated biofilm communities

Environmental Microbiome 2025
Jessica Song, Brittan S. Scales, Minh Anh Nguyen, Emelie Westberg, Bartosz Witalis, Barbara Urban-Malinga, Sonja Oberbeckmann

Summary

Researchers investigated the sorption of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) onto microplastics and the potential cascading effects on biofilm communities associated with those microplastics in aquatic environments. They found that evaluating microplastics in isolation underestimates their ecological impact, as co-transported PAHs can alter the composition and function of biofilm communities across different compartments of aquatic ecosystems.

The findings in our study highlight the importance of investigating contaminants such as MPs holistically, including any associated substances, to fully understand how they impact surrounding ecological systems as they traverse the different compartments of the aquatic ecosystem.

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