We can't find the internet
Attempting to reconnect
Something went wrong!
Hang in there while we get back on track
Professor
Summary
Researchers from the microSEAP project — a multinational collaboration spanning the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, and the UK — investigated microbial transformation of plastics in Southeast Asian coastal ecosystems, tracing plastic sources from megacity origins through coastal sinks including beaches, mangrove forests, and coral reefs. The study focused on plastic-degrading microorganisms in biofilms on plastic particles, finding that biodegradation activity intensifies as particle size decreases, with implications for understanding the ultimate environmental residence time of marine plastic debris.
Microbial transformation of plastics in SE Asian seas: a hazard and a solution The microSEAP project brings together teams from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and the UK to work on marine plastic pollution using a perspective that starts from the microscopic scale but leads up to the ecosystem level. It works from sources of macro- and microplastics in the SE Asian megacities to plastic fate in coastal ecosystems, particularly beaches, mangrove forests and coral reefs, that act as unintended sinks for plastics. The microorganisms in the biofilm on these plastic particles include recruits with plastic-degrading enzymes whose activities become more and more important, the smaller the plastic particles become, eventually determining the very long but as-yet unmeasured residence time of plastics in the environment. These microorganisms also provide inspiration for enzymatic recycling to drive a shift from viewing petrochemical-derived discarded plastic as waste with a disposal cost, to a feedstock with value sufficient to incentivise recycling. The chemists, microbiologists, bioinformaticians, ecologists and engineers work with economists plus legal and governance specialists to ensure that findings are integrated into socially-relevant policies. Also see: https://micro2024.sciencesconf.org/559647/document
Sign in to start a discussion.
More Papers Like This
Professor
Researchers from the microSEAP project — a multinational collaboration spanning the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, and the UK — investigated microbial transformation of plastics in Southeast Asian coastal ecosystems, tracing plastic sources from megacity origins through coastal sinks including beaches, mangrove forests, and coral reefs. The study focused on plastic-degrading microorganisms in biofilms on plastic particles, finding that biodegradation activity intensifies as particle size decreases, with implications for understanding the ultimate environmental residence time of marine plastic debris.
Professor
Researchers from the microSEAP project investigated microbial transformation of plastics in Southeast Asian seas, examining plastic fate in coastal ecosystems including beaches, mangrove forests, and coral reefs across the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, and the UK to assess both hazards and potential bioremediation solutions.
Professor
Researchers from the microSEAP project examined microbial transformation of plastics across Southeast Asian coastal ecosystems, investigating both the hazardous consequences of plastic-associated microbial communities and the potential for using microbial activity as a bioremediation solution for marine plastic pollution.
Emergence of specialized plastic-degrading enzymes within highly dynamic coastal oceans
Researchers conducted long-term monitoring of microplastics in the Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem and found high abundances linked to freshwater inflow patterns. Alongside microplastics, they identified nearly 750 plastic-degrading enzyme sequences in the microbial community, suggesting that this dynamic coastal ecosystem harbors specialized plastic-degrading microbiomes.
Plastic pollution and beyond: do microbes hold the key towards a sustainable solution to this global crisis?
Researchers investigated marine microplastic pollution along the Andaman Sea coastline to establish baseline data on plastic type and abundance, and reviewed the potential of microbial communities to degrade microplastics as part of a broader analysis of biological and bioengineering solutions to the global plastic pollution crisis.