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Microplastics as Ecological Infrastructure: A Systems Perspective on Microbial Connectivity, Carbon Cycling, and Ecosystem Resilience
Summary
Tiny bits of plastic floating in oceans and rivers aren't just pollution, they act like little rafts that carry entire communities of microbes (bacteria and other tiny organisms) to new places, potentially spreading them across ecosystems that would otherwise stay separate. This review paper argues that scientists should think of microplastics as a kind of infrastructure that can affect big-picture processes like carbon cycling and ecosystem health, though these ideas are still theoretical and need to be tested. While this research focuses on environmental impacts rather than direct human health effects, it matters because healthy oceans and rivers, and the microb
Microplastics are increasingly recognized not only as persistent pollutants but also as novel microbial habitats capable of influencing ecological processes across aquatic ecosystems. Although the plastisphere has been extensively described, its broader ecological significance remains poorly integrated within ecosystem theory. Here, we propose the Ecological Infrastructure Framework (EIF), in which colonized microplastics function as persistent mobile substrates that simultaneously provide habitat, maintain biological organization, connect previously isolated ecosystems and redistribute microbial communities together with their associated ecological functions. Within this framework, eco-corona formation, microbial succession and environmental selection act as hierarchical ecological filters that shape plastisphere assembly throughout transport. We further introduce the concept of ecological filter compression, whereby persistent mobile substrates simultaneously relax geographic dispersal barriers while strengthening deterministic ecological selection, promoting the dispersal of metabolically organized biofilm communities rather than isolated microbial cells. Extending this perspective beyond community ecology, we discuss how the redistribution of microbial functional potential may influence carbon cycling and ecosystem resilience through changes in microbial connectivity. By integrating eco-corona formation, ecological filtering, microbial succession, metacommunity theory and ecosystem functioning into a unified systems perspective, this review redefines the ecological role of colonized microplastics and generates explicit, testable predictions regarding microbial connectivity, biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem resilience.