We can't find the internet
Attempting to reconnect
Something went wrong!
Hang in there while we get back on track
Ecosystem-level effects
Summary
This book chapter reviews the limited but growing evidence that microplastic impacts on individual organisms can scale up to affect entire populations, communities, and ecosystems through mechanisms such as altered oxygen and nutrient cycling, reduced reproduction across generations, and disrupted food-web energy flows. The authors emphasize that ecosystem-level effects remain poorly understood, making this one of the most critical knowledge gaps for assessing the true environmental cost of plastic pollution.
Although a great deal of information has thus far been gathered concerning the uptake and impacts of microplastics in animals, there is far less information on the subsequent effects at population, community and ecosystem levels. Despite this, there are numerous routes through which such widespread effects may occur: changes to environmental conditions (heat, light, oxygen and nutrient levels), intergenerational effects (such as reduced offspring number), and changes to prey availability, predator abundance, and energy flows between trophic levels. This chapter shows much of this information, critically evaluating our current understanding of the impacts of microplastics at the ecosystem-level as well as the implications of these effects on natural resources.