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Investigating Microplastic Particle Transport in Soils using Micro-CT Senior Project
Summary
Researchers investigated microplastic particle transport in soil environments using micro-CT imaging, with a focus on the physical changes microplastics induce in soil structure and chemistry as a baseline for understanding interactions with mycorrhizal fungi and plant roots. The study sought to characterise how microplastic addition alters soil porosity and geological chemistry, establishing a foundation for further experiments on microplastic-fungi-plant relationships.
The motivation for my project was a deep curiosity on the symbiotic relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and plant roots, specifically how that relationship might interact with microplastics that seep into soil environments. This felt like a very important and relevant thing to investigate because plastic is a huge part of our daily lives and in turn, microplastics are a huge part of our natural environment. The danger of microplastics is that they are invisible to the naked eye, so we are unable to easily see the direct effects they have on the soil and the microorganisms and plants living within the soil. Not only do microplastics directly impact the living aspects of a soil environment, but they also affect the geological chemistry of the soil; this sort of pathway and the physical changes that could be observed from microplastic addition to the soil is what I first looked at so that I could get a baseline for any further experimentation. The idea was to eventually see how mycorrhizal fungi interacted with microplastic;
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