Microplastic shape influences fate in vegetated wetlands

Coastal areas are prone to plastic accumulation due to their proximity to land based sources. Coastal vegetated habitats (e.g., seagrasses, saltmarshes, mangroves) provide a myriad of ecosystem functions, such as erosion protection, habitat refuge, and carbon storage. The biological and physical factors that underlie these functions may provide an additional benefit: trapping of marine microplastics. While microplastics occurrence in coastal vegetated sediments is well documented, there is conflicting evidence on whether the presence of vegetation enhances microplastics trapping relative to bare sites. Moreover, the factors that influence the likelihood of microplastic trapping remain understudied. We aimed to investigate how vegetation structure and microplastic type influences trapping in a simulated coastal wetland. Through a flume experiment, we measured the efficiency of microplastic trapping in the presence of two types of vegetation – branched and grassy, and tested an array of microplastics that differ in shape, size, and polymer. We observed that the presence of vegetation did not affect the number of microplastics trapped but did affect location of deposition. Microplastic shape, rather than polymer, was the dominant factor in determining whether microplastics were retained in the sediment or adhered to the vegetation canopy. The outcome of this study enriches our understanding of coastal vegetation as a microplastics sink and that differences among microplastics informs where they are most likely to accumulate within a biogenic canopy. Also see: https://micro2024.sciencesconf.org/557071/document