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Microplastic Mixture Diversity Destabilizes Mineral-Associated Carbon via Constraining the Accumulation of Microbial Necromass
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Researchers exposed soil to increasing microplastic diversity (1–12 polymer types) and found that greater polymer diversity reduced microbial necromass carbon by up to 9% and mineral-associated organic carbon by up to 11%, suggesting diverse microplastic mixtures pose greater risks to soil carbon sequestration.
Microplastics are accumulating in terrestrial ecosystems as complex and diverse mixtures, posing a potential threat to soil carbon stocks. However, previous studies primarily focused on an individual microplastic; the ecological risks of diverse microplastics on soil carbon sequestration are still unclear. Here, soils were exposed to diverse microplastics (microplastic diversity, number of polymer types =1, 2, 4, 8, and 12) to assess the consequences of increasing microplastic diversity on soil stable carbon pools. Our results showed multiple microplastics reduced microbial necromass carbon (MNC) and mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC) by 3.5-9.2% and 4.2-11.4%, respectively, when compared to individual microplastics. Microplastic diversity decreased the microbial carbon uptake and necromass accumulation coefficient (NAC), both of which revealed the low efficiency of necromass formation. Furthermore, increased microplastic diversity induced serious carbon and nitrogen imbalances and great microbial nitrogen demand, promoting microbial reutilization of necromass as a N source. The structural equation model identified bacterial community and microbial physiological properties as primary factors regulating MNC, thereby decreasing this precursor contribution to MAOC pools. Our results emphasized that increasing microplastic diversity can hinder the accumulation of microbial necromass and destabilize soil stable carbon, which may bring ecological risks in mitigating climate change.
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MicroplasticMixture Diversity Destabilizes Mineral-AssociatedCarbon via Constraining the Accumulation of Microbial Necromass
AI summary Read the abstract
Researchers exposed soils to mixtures of increasing microplastic diversity (1 to 12 polymer types) and found that greater microplastic mixture diversity reduced microbial necromass carbon and mineral-associated organic carbon by 3.5-9.2% and 4.2-11.4% respectively compared to single-polymer treatments. The results indicate that diverse microplastic mixtures destabilize soil carbon stocks by constraining the accumulation of microbial necromass, a key pathway for long-term carbon sequestration.
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Researchers conducted a soil microcosm experiment to study how the diversity of microplastic types (rather than just individual types) affects soil ecosystem functions. They found that increasing microplastic diversity raised soil pH and organic carbon while reducing available nitrogen, and significantly boosted bacterial diversity and denitrifying gene abundance. The findings suggest that realistic mixtures of multiple microplastic types in soil may have stronger impacts on nitrogen cycling than single-type contamination.
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