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The Spatiotemporal Successions of Bacterial and Fungal Plastisphere Communities and Their Effects on Microplastic Degradation in Soil Ecosystems
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Researchers tracked how bacterial and fungal communities colonize microplastic surfaces in soil over time, finding that the surrounding soil type had the strongest influence on which microbes grew on the plastics. The microbial communities on microplastics were less diverse and less stable than those in the surrounding soil, but they attracted microbes with a higher capacity to break down organic carbon. The study suggests that microplastic surfaces become hotspots for carbon metabolism in soil ecosystems.
The succession and assembly processes of plastisphere microbiomes and their potential for the degradation of microplastics (MPs) in soil ecosystems are still unclear. We explored the variation of plastisphere microbiomes on three MPs over three time periods in three types of soil. Continuous alterations in the composition of plastisphere microbiomes were observed during incubation, and the successions of plastisphere microbiomes were significantly influenced by the colonization environment, followed by the polymer type and incubation time. The assembly of plastisphere microbiomes was dominated by stochastic processes; however, determinism contributed more to the assembly of plastisphere bacterial communities than to fungal communities, suggesting that the filtering effects of MPs on bacteria were stronger than those on fungi. The microbial communities in plastispheres exhibited networks of lower complexity and stability, as well as lower functional diversity, than the networks within bulk soils. Bacterial communities played a greater role in plastisphere microbial network formation and MP degradation than fungal communities. The MPs attracted and retained key microbes with a significantly higher organic carbon degradation capacity than soil microbes, causing plastispheres to become hotspots of organic carbon metabolism in soil. This study deepens our understanding of the mechanisms of the formation and succession of soil plastispheres.
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The SpatiotemporalSuccessions of Bacterial and FungalPlastisphere Communities and Their Effects on Microplastic Degradationin Soil Ecosystems
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Researchers explored spatiotemporal succession of bacterial and fungal plastisphere communities on three microplastic types across three soil types over multiple time periods, finding that colonization environment was the dominant driver of plastisphere microbiome assembly, followed by polymer type and incubation time.
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Researchers investigated the roles of microbes in biodegrading or colonizing microplastic surfaces, examining how microbial communities interact with plastic polymers in environmental settings. The study characterized the 'plastisphere' — the community of microorganisms that colonize microplastic surfaces — and assessed the extent to which microbial activity contributes to plastic degradation in natural environments.
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