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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Microplastics and Climate Change: Unveiling Ecological Impacts and Addressing Research Gaps
ClearMicroplastics and Climate Change: Unveiling Ecological Impacts and Addressing Research Gaps
This review synthesizes studies from 2022 to 2024 on how microplastics contribute to greenhouse gas emissions — including CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide — through mechanisms such as nutrient adsorption and microbial colonization, identifying nitrous oxide interactions as a critical and underexplored research gap.
Emerging challenges of microplastic impacts to ecological health and climate change
This review examines how microplastics contribute not only to environmental pollution but also to climate change by altering microbial processes, disrupting biogeochemical cycles, and promoting greenhouse gas release. Researchers found that microplastics affect carbon cycling, phytoplankton photosynthesis, and atmospheric processes in ways that may exacerbate global warming. The study highlights significant knowledge gaps in understanding the mechanisms linking microplastic pollution to greenhouse gas emissions.
Effects of microplastics on microbial community and greenhouse gas emission in soil: A critical review
This review examines how microplastics in soil affect microbial communities and greenhouse gas emissions, finding that microplastics can alter the abundance and activity of soil bacteria in ways that increase carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide release. The plastics change soil structure and chemistry, creating conditions that favor certain gas-producing microbes over others. These effects could worsen climate change while also disrupting soil fertility, with indirect consequences for food production.
The impact of microplastics and nanoplastics on biological nitrogen removal processes: Exacerbating the greenhouse effect
This review examines how microplastics and nanoplastics accumulate in wastewater treatment plants and interfere with the biological processes that remove nitrogen from water. The disruption leads to increased emissions of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, making the problem both an environmental health concern and a climate issue. The findings suggest that microplastic contamination in wastewater is undermining treatment effectiveness while simultaneously contributing to global warming.
A review of microplastics stress on nitrogen conversion and nitrous oxide emissions from biological wastewater treatment: Efficiency, mechanism and prospects
This review analyzes how microplastics affect nitrogen conversion processes and nitrous oxide emissions during biological wastewater treatment. Researchers found that microplastics can disrupt key nitrogen-cycling steps including nitrification and denitrification, potentially increasing emissions of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. The study highlights the dual environmental concern of microplastics interfering with both water treatment efficiency and climate-relevant gas emissions.
[Advances in the Effects of Microplastics on Soil N2O Emissions and Nitrogen Transformation].
This review synthesizes current research on how microplastics affect soil nitrogen cycling, including N2O emissions, nitrogen transformation processes, functional enzyme activity, and nitrogen-related genes, highlighting inconsistent findings due to variability in microplastic properties, experimental conditions, and spatial-temporal scales.
Microplastics in agricultural soil: Unveiling their role in shaping soil properties and driving greenhouse gas emissions
This review examines how microplastics in agricultural soils affect carbon and nitrogen cycles and alter greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers found that microplastics reduce soil water retention, decrease soil respiration, and increase emissions of carbon monoxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. The study reveals that microplastic contamination in farmland may have broader climate implications by disrupting the soil processes that regulate greenhouse gas fluxes.
Microplastic pollution as an environmental risk exacerbating the greenhouse effect and climate change: a review
Researchers reviewed how microplastics contribute to climate change by releasing greenhouse gases as they degrade, disrupting plant photosynthesis, and altering soil microbial communities that regulate carbon and methane emissions. The review reveals a troubling feedback loop: microplastics worsen global warming, and rising temperatures cause more microplastics to be resuspended from sediments, further intensifying environmental contamination.
Effect of microplastics on soil greenhouse gas emissions: A global meta-analysis study
This global meta-analysis found that microplastic exposure in soil decreased nitrous oxide emissions by 28.5% and increased methane emissions by 28.6%, though neither change was statistically significant overall. Effects varied dramatically depending on microplastic shape, concentration, soil type, and pH, with fiber-shaped microplastics reducing CO2 emissions by 40% while microplastics in sandy soils increased CO2 by 21%.
Microplastics stimulated nitrous oxide emissions primarily through denitrification: A meta-analysis
Meta-analysis of 60 studies found that microplastic exposure increased soil nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions by 140.6%, primarily by stimulating denitrification rates (up 17.8%) and denitrifier gene abundance (up 10.6%), while nitrification remained unaffected. This resulted in a 38.8% increase in soil nitrite and a 22.4% decrease in nitrate.
Microplastics and their mechanisms in influencing methane oxidation: A physiological and ecological perspective
This review examines the physiological and ecological mechanisms by which microplastics influence methane oxidation processes in the environment, synthesising current understanding of how ubiquitous plastic contamination may disrupt microbial communities responsible for mitigating methane — a greenhouse gas 20-30 times more potent than CO2.
Microplastics transport and impact on nitrogen cycling and N2O emissions in estuaries
This review synthesized evidence on how microplastics disrupt nitrogen cycling and amplify nitrous oxide emissions in estuarine ecosystems, proposing an integrative conceptual model. Microplastics affect nitrogen transformation through adsorption of nitrogenous compounds, microbial community restructuring, enzymatic inhibition, and promotion of incomplete denitrification within plastisphere biofilms.
Recent advances on the effects of microplastics on elements cycling in the environment
This review summarized how microplastics affect carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycling in the environment, finding that impacts occur primarily in soil ecosystems where microplastics alter CO2 emissions, nitrogen transformation processes, and phosphorus availability.
Exploring the potential impacts of microplastics on greenhouse gas emissions in wastewater treatment
This review analyzed how microplastics in wastewater treatment plants affect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, focusing on mechanisms by which microplastics alter microbial communities and their metabolic processes. The plastisphere was identified as a key site for altered methane and nitrous oxide production, with implications for climate reporting from the water sector.
Could soil microplastic pollution exacerbate climate change? A meta-analysis of greenhouse gas emissions and global warming potential
The first meta-analysis linking soil microplastic pollution to greenhouse gas emissions found that microplastics increased overall emissions, with the strongest effect being a 60% increase in methane. Polyethylene caused the highest methane emissions, phenol-formaldehyde had the greatest global warming potential via nitrous oxide, and greenhouse gas emissions rose sharply when soil microplastic content exceeded 0.5%.
A Synthesis of Global Coastal Ocean Greenhouse Gas Fluxes
This large-scale study measured greenhouse gas exchanges between the coastal ocean and atmosphere, finding that while coastal waters absorb carbon dioxide, they also release nitrous oxide and methane that offset much of that climate benefit. While focused on greenhouse gases rather than microplastics, the study is relevant because climate change and ocean chemistry changes affect how microplastics behave in marine environments. Warming oceans and changing chemistry could influence how microplastics break down and move through the food chain.
Long-term aged fibrous polypropylene microplastics promotes nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, and methane emissions from a coastal wetland soil
Researchers found that aged polypropylene microplastic fibers significantly increased greenhouse gas emissions from coastal wetland soil, including nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, and methane. The older and more weathered the microplastics were, the greater their impact on gas emissions, likely because aging changes the soil's physical and chemical properties. This matters because it shows microplastic pollution could be worsening climate change, which in turn affects food production and human health.
Effect of microplastics on carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycle in farmland soil: A meta-analysis
This meta-analysis of 102 studies found that microplastics in farmland soil increased soil organic carbon, microbial biomass carbon, and microbial biomass nitrogen, but also elevated CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions through enhanced carbon mineralization and denitrification. Microplastic biodegradability, size, concentration, and soil properties all drove these effects, suggesting agricultural microplastic pollution may worsen greenhouse gas emissions from farmland.
Estuarine plastisphere as an overlooked source of N2O production
Researchers found that the "plastisphere" — the community of microbes that colonizes floating plastic debris in estuaries — produces more nitrous oxide (a potent greenhouse gas) than surrounding water, revealing that plastic pollution may be quietly contributing to climate change through altered microbial chemistry.
Microplastics and Soil Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Critical Reflection on Meta-Analyses
This meta-analysis pools data from multiple studies to assess whether microplastics in agricultural soil affect greenhouse gas emissions. The findings reveal that the environmental impact of microplastics extends beyond direct toxicity, as they may alter soil microbial activity in ways that contribute to climate change.
Microplastic composition-dependent effects on N2O emissions driven by changes in soil N process and microbial communities
This study found that biodegradable and conventional microplastics both reduced nitrous oxide emissions from plant-soil systems by 17-32%, but through different mechanisms: polyethylene promoted complete denitrification, PLA suppressed a key denitrification gene, and PBAT inhibited both nitrification and denitrification. A companion meta-analysis of 14 plant-soil studies confirmed that microplastics reduce N2O emissions by an average of 22% in vegetated systems.
Microplastics as drivers of carbon and nitrogen cycling alterations in aquatic ecosystems: A meta-analysis
This network meta-analysis found that microplastics enhance dissolved and total organic carbon in aquatic sediments, promote anaerobic processes, and stimulate greenhouse gas emissions including N2O and methane. In seawater sediments, microplastics significantly boosted denitrification gene abundance, while biodegradable microplastics showed stronger effects on carbon and nitrogen cycling than conventional plastics.
Role of Microplastics in Global Warming and Climate Change: A Review
This review examines how microplastics contribute to climate change through multiple pathways, including disrupting ocean carbon capture by phytoplankton, releasing greenhouse gases from soil, and potentially influencing cloud formation in the atmosphere. Researchers found that climate-driven extreme weather events also redistribute microplastics, creating a feedback loop that worsens both problems. The study makes the case that microplastic pollution and climate change should be addressed as interconnected challenges.
The impacts of microplastics on the cycling of carbon and nitrogen in terrestrial soil ecosystems: Progress and prospects
This review examines how microplastics in soil affect the cycling of carbon and nitrogen, two elements essential for plant growth and soil health. Microplastics alter soil microbial communities and enzyme activity in ways that change greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient availability, which could ultimately affect crop production and the food supply.