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Bacterial colonization dynamics of different microplastic types in an anoxic salt marsh sediment and impact of adsorbed polychlorinated biphenyls on the plastisphere
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Researchers tracked bacterial colonization on different microplastic types in anoxic salt marsh sediment over one year, finding that PVC recruited distinct sulfate-reducing bacterial communities and that PCB-contaminated plastics failed to stimulate actual dechlorination.
Plastic debris dispersed into the environment provide a substrate for microbial colonization, constituting a new human-made ecosystem called "plastisphere", and altering the microbial species distribution in aquatic, coastal and benthic ecosystems. The study aims at exploring the interaction among microplastics (MPs) made of different polymers, a persistent organic contaminant (polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs), and the environmental microbial communities, in an anoxic marine sediment. Plastic pellets were incubated in the field in a salt marsh anoxic sediment, to observe the stages of plastisphere formation, by quantitative PCR and 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and PCB dechlorination activity on the MPs surface. Microbes from the sediment rapidly colonized the different microplastics types, with PVC recruiting a peculiar community enriched in sulfate-reducing bacteria. The composition of the plastisphere varied along the 1-year incubation possibly in response either to warmer temperatures in spring-summer or to microhabitat's changes due to the progressive plastic surface weathering. Even if PCB contaminated MPs were able to recruit potentially dehalogenating taxa, actual dechlorination was not detectable after 1 year. This suggests that the concentration of potentially dehalorespiring bacteria in the natural environment could be too low for the onset of the dechlorination process on MP-sorbed contaminants. Our study, which is among very few available longitudinally exploring the plastisphere composition in an anoxic sediment context, is the first exploring the fate and possible biodegradation of persistent organic pollutants sorbed on MPs reaching the seafloor.
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Different types of microplastic pellets (PE, PET, PS, PP, PVC) were introduced into anaerobic marine sediment microcosms and all were rapidly colonized by organohalide-respiring bacteria within 2 weeks, with PVC attracting the greatest biofilm growth. Importantly, the bacterial community biotransformed PCBs sorbed on the microplastics, suggesting a potential biodegradation route for plastic-associated pollutants.
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Researchers conducted a year-long field experiment examining microbial communities that colonize different types of microplastics in a Chinese coastal salt marsh across three distinct habitat zones. They found that the type of plastic polymer and the surrounding environment both significantly influenced the composition of the bacterial communities growing on the plastic surfaces. The study reveals that bio-based plastics like polylactic acid harbored distinctly different microbial communities compared to petroleum-based plastics like polyethylene.
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Bacterial communities colonizing plastic debris in the Haihe Estuary of Bohai Bay, China, were shaped by both environmental factors (season, salinity, temperature) and the type of plastic polymer, with distinct microbial assemblages forming on different plastic surfaces. The results demonstrate that the "plastisphere" in estuarine environments is a dynamically structured microbial habitat.
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Researchers performed 16S rRNA sequencing on biofilms from three microplastic polymer types and glass bead controls deployed in Baltimore Inner Harbor over 28 days, finding that plastisphere communities were taxonomically distinct from free-living microbial communities but that polymer type did not significantly differentiate community composition, with Cyanobacteria, Planctomycetes, and sulfate-reducing bacteria among the notable colonizers.
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