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Rethinking plastic as a habitat modifier and a transport vector for organisms in aquatic environments
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This perspective paper argues that beyond toxicological effects, plastic pollution alters fundamental aquatic ecosystem functions including energy and matter fluxes at key interfaces. The authors call for urgent investigation of ecosystem-level impacts as rising plastic concentrations in heavily polluted environments may already be disrupting foundational ecosystem structure.
Scientific Significance Statement: Plastic pollution is affecting aquatic and marine ecosystems. However, while increasing evidence highlights potential toxicological effects, broader ecosystem-level impacts remain largely overlooked. Recent findings suggest that plastic can undermine ecosystem functioning by altering fundamental fluxes of energy and matter at key interfaces within aquatic ecosystems. This view warrants urgent investigation, as rising plastic concentrations in aquatic ecosystems may disrupt their fundamental functioning, and current environmental concentrations in heavily polluted environments may already be altering ecosystem structure.
More Papers Like This
Rethinking plastic as a habitat modifier and a transport vector for organisms in aquatic environments
AI summary Read the abstract
This perspective argues that plastic pollution in aquatic environments not only poses direct toxicological risks but may fundamentally alter ecosystem functioning by modifying energy fluxes, material cycling, and ecological interactions at key interfaces in water systems.
Plastic Pollution and Ecosystem Health: Sources, Pathways, Impacts, and Mitigation Strategies
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Researchers reviewed how plastics from industrial, domestic, agricultural, and transport sources enter terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems via runoff, rivers, wastewater, and atmospheric deposition, fragment into increasingly mobile microplastics and nanoplastics, and drive biodiversity impacts through ingestion, chemical toxicity, and trophic transfer — identifying research gaps and calling for integrated policy and technological responses.
Environmental Impact of Microplastics in Aquatic Ecosystems: A Review of Current Research and Future Directions
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This review examines microplastic pollution in aquatic ecosystems, covering chemical, biological, and ecological processes beyond simple physical contamination and identifying priority areas for future research directions.
A call to evaluate Plastic’s impacts on marine benthic ecosystem interaction networks
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Researchers reviewed how plastic pollution affects marine benthic ecosystem functions beyond simple toxicity, arguing that plastics may interfere with carbon cycling, primary production, nutrient cycling, and bioturbation — and calling for field experiments and ecological network analyses to test whether plastics act as recalcitrant carbon molecules with ecosystem-level biogeochemical consequences.
Plastic Pollution is a Serious Menace to Ecosystem Health with Special Reference to Aquatic Ecosystems and its Associated Challenges, Opportunities, and Mitigations
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This review examines how plastic pollution, including microplastics, threatens aquatic ecosystem health, affecting fish, birds, and mammals through ingestion, entanglement, and chemical exposure. Researchers highlighted that our understanding of microplastic dynamics — their release, retention, accumulation, and transfer across ecosystems — remains limited. The study calls for more research into the long-term ecological consequences of microplastic contamination in aquatic environments.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.