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Zooplankton grazing of microplastic can accelerate global loss of ocean oxygen
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Researchers modeled the effect of zooplankton microplastic ingestion on ocean oxygen levels, finding that reduced zooplankton grazing on phytoplankton due to plastic consumption could decrease export of organic carbon to depth, leading to lower oxygen consumption by deep-water bacteria and counterintuitively reducing oxygen loss in some scenarios.
Global warming has driven a loss of dissolved oxygen in the ocean in recent decades. We demonstrate the potential for an additional anthropogenic driver of deoxygenation, in which zooplankton consumption of microplastic reduces the grazing on primary producers. In regions where primary production is not limited by macronutrient availability, the reduction of grazing pressure on primary producers causes export production to increase. Consequently, organic particle remineralisation in these regions increases. Employing a comprehensive Earth system model of intermediate complexity, we estimate this additional remineralisation could decrease water column oxygen inventory by as much as 10% in the North Pacific and accelerate global oxygen inventory loss by an extra 0.2-0.5% relative to 1960 values by the year 2020. Although significant uncertainty accompanies these estimates, the potential for physical pollution to have a globally significant biogeochemical signal that exacerbates the consequences of climate warming is a novel feedback not yet considered in climate research.
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Potential impacts of microplastic on zooplankton at the global scale
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Researchers used mathematical modeling to estimate the global-scale impacts of microplastic pollution on ocean zooplankton, which form the foundation of marine food webs. Their models suggest that microplastics cause zooplankton to reduce their feeding rates and shift their prey preferences, which could have cascading effects on carbon export from surface waters to the deep ocean. The study highlights that even modest disruptions to zooplankton behavior from microplastics could have significant consequences for ocean biogeochemistry.
Model exploration of microplastic effects on zooplankton grazing reveal potential impacts on the global carbon cycle
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Researchers used a global ocean model to explore how microplastics could affect zooplankton grazing and, in turn, the ocean's carbon cycle. The study suggests that while microplastic impacts on zooplankton remain concentrated in about 10% of the ocean surface, heavily contaminated areas like subtropical gyres could see meaningful shifts in biological carbon export to the deep ocean over the coming decades.
Zooplankton exposure to microplastics at global scale: Influence of vertical distribution and seasonality
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Researchers used a global ocean model to assess zooplankton exposure to microplastics, finding that exposure varies significantly with depth, season, and zooplankton vertical migration patterns, with highest concentrations in subtropical gyres and near coastal pollution sources.
Do microplastics affect marine ecosystem productivity?
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This study estimated the ecosystem-level impacts of microplastics on marine productivity by scaling up laboratory findings on individual algae and zooplankton to broader ecological models. The results suggest that microplastics may measurably reduce both primary and secondary marine productivity, with consequences for ocean carbon cycling and food webs.
The faecal microplastic pump: zooplankton efficiently transport microplastics to the ocean depths
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Tiny ocean creatures called zooplankton are eating floating plastic bits and pooping them out in pellets that sink to the deep sea, acting like a natural elevator that carries roughly a third of the ocean's "missing" microplastics down to depths below 1,000 meters. This matters because it helps explain where all the plastic we've dumped into the ocean actually ends up, and it means deep-sea ecosystems (and the food chains tied to them, including seafood we eat) are absorbing more plastic pollution than previously realized.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.