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Microplastic Pollution in Terrestrial Systems: Sources and Implications for Soil Functioning and Plant Performance
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Researchers reviewed how microplastics enter terrestrial ecosystems through atmospheric deposition, irrigation, and agricultural mulching and found they reduce soil moisture, disrupt microbial communities, impair nutrient cycling, and harm earthworms — collectively threatening soil health and plant performance in agricultural and natural systems.
Recent years have seen a significant increase in microplastic contamination across terrestrial ecosystems, facilitated by various pathways such as atmospheric deposition, wastewater irrigation, and agricultural plastic mulching. This persistence of microplastics in soil raises concerns about their profound impacts on soil health and ecosystem dynamics. Key studies have highlighted detrimental effects, including reduced soil moisture retention, altered soil microbiota composition, and disrupted nutrient cycling processes. Moreover, microplastic pollution adversely affects soil biota, notably earthworms, crucial for soil nutrient cycling and structure maintenance, exhibiting reduced growth rates and increased mortality upon exposure. Notably, microplastics also influence soil microorganisms, potentially compromising overall soil health and ecosystem functioning. Co-exposure of microplastics and other contaminants can also synergistically exacerbate toxicity, impairing ecological balance. Evidence suggests negative repercussions on plant growth, including diminished seed germination rates and altered nutrient profiles in exposed plants. These findings underscore the urgent need for comprehensive reviews to synthesize existing knowledge, and identify research gaps, necessitating a focus on mitigation strategies. Addressing these issues is critical for safeguarding terrestrial ecosystems and ensuring sustainable environmental management in the face of increasing microplastic contamination.
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Microplastics and Their Effects on Soil Function as a Life-Supporting System
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Microplastics alter essential soil functions by changing soil structure, water retention, microbial communities, and nutrient cycling in ways that threaten the life-supporting capacity of agricultural and natural soils. As terrestrial microplastic contamination continues to grow — exceeding ocean concentrations in many regions — the long-term health of soil ecosystems and food production is at risk.
Microplastics in Soil-Plant Systems
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This review synthesized evidence on microplastic contamination in terrestrial soil-plant systems, examining effects on soil structure, nutrient cycling, microbial communities, and plant uptake of plastic particles. Because plants can absorb microplastics and translocate them into edible tissue, agricultural soil contamination represents a direct and underappreciated pathway of human dietary exposure to plastic particles.
Microplastics in Soil Ecosystem: Insight on Its Fate and Impacts on Soil Quality
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Researchers examined how plastic film used widely in Chinese agriculture breaks down and accumulates in soil, finding that microplastic debris may degrade soil quality and crop health over time, with potential ripple effects for food safety and agricultural sustainability.
Microplastic in Soil Ecosystem: Transition and Ecological Impacts
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This review examined how microplastics transition through soil ecosystems, alter soil structure, affect microbial communities, and impact plant health and agricultural productivity. Soil microplastic contamination is a growing threat to food security because it degrades the biological systems that underpin crop growth while simultaneously introducing chemical additives into the root zone where they can be taken up by edible plants.
Microplastics in Soils and Sediments: a Review of Characterization, Quantitation, and Ecological Risk Assessment
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Researchers reviewed current methods for detecting and measuring microplastics in soils and sediments, identifying a lack of standardized protocols as a key barrier to comparing findings across studies. The review calls for urgent development of consistent methodologies to better assess the true scale of microplastic pollution in land environments.
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