Papers

20 results
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Article Tier 2

Bacterial community structure of water, sediment and microplastics in Poyang Lake wetland.

This study compared the bacterial communities living on four types of microplastics (film, foam, fiber, and fragment) in Poyang Lake wetland in China against the bacterial communities in the surrounding water and sediment. The microplastic surfaces hosted distinct microbial communities that differed from both the water and sediment, with foam microplastics supporting the least diverse communities. This "plastisphere" research is important because the unique bacteria colonizing plastic surfaces could spread pathogens or alter nutrient cycles in freshwater wetland ecosystems.

2023 PubMed
Article Tier 2

[Characterization of Microplastic Surface Bacterial Community Structure and Prediction of Ecological Risk in Poyang Lake, China].

Researchers characterized bacterial communities on microplastic surfaces (PE, PET, PP, PS) in Poyang Lake using 16S high-throughput sequencing, finding that microplastic surfaces harbored distinct communities with lower diversity than surrounding water and sediment, dominated by Proteobacteria and Bacteroidota with Massilia and Pseudomonas as key genera.

2024 PubMed
Article Tier 2

Effects of microplastics on bacterial communities in lake wetland sediments: a comparison between drought and flooded conditions

Researchers established a sediment microcosm system for Poyang Lake wetland and examined the effects of polyethylene and polypropylene microplastics on bacterial community structure, functional genes, and ecological processes over 180 days under both simulated drought and flooded conditions.

2025 Journal of Environmental Management
Article Tier 2

Comparative analysis of microplastic and microbial communities in varied aquatic environments: Disparities in occurrence, interconnections, and ecological implications

Comparative surveys of microplastics and associated microbial communities across river, reservoir, and bay environments in the Dongjiang watershed found that MP abundance and microbial community composition differed significantly by water type, with MP surfaces hosting distinct microbial assemblages.

2025 Journal of Hazardous Materials 3 citations
Article Tier 2

Uniqueness and Dependence of Bacterial Communities on Microplastics: Comparison with Water, Sediment, and Soil

Researchers compared bacterial communities on microplastics with those in water, sediment, and soil in the Three Gorges Reservoir area, finding that microplastic-associated communities are unique in composition and ecological function compared to surrounding environments.

2021 Microbial Ecology 38 citations
Article Tier 2

Substrate-driven microbial diversity and functional potential of plastisphere biofilms in a dynamic coastal ecosystem of northeastern Taiwan

Researchers used full-length 16S rRNA sequencing to compare microbial communities on floating microplastics, natural wood debris, and surface seawater from ten coastal sites in Taiwan, finding that microplastics harbor unique and highly diverse microbial assemblages distinct from those on natural surfaces.

2025 Environmental Pollution
Article Tier 2

Distinct microbial communities in the microplastisphere of inland wetlands: Diversity, composition, co-occurrence networks, and functions.

Researchers collected samples from different inland wetland types to characterize the microbial communities colonizing plastic surfaces (the microplastisphere), finding distinct bacterial and fungal communities compared to surrounding soils. Community composition varied by wetland type and plastic surface, highlighting the ecological diversity of plastic-associated microbiomes in freshwater habitats.

2025 Journal of hazardous materials
Article Tier 2

Microplastic-associated bacterial assemblages in the intertidal zone of the Yangtze Estuary

Researchers used high-throughput DNA sequencing to profile bacterial communities colonizing microplastics in the intertidal zone of China's Yangtze Estuary, finding that plastisphere community composition reflected the particles' sedimentary versus aquatic origins and included keystone taxa adapted to surface-colonization as well as potential pathogens hitchhiking on plastic surfaces.

2017 The Science of The Total Environment 356 citations
Article Tier 2

Characteristics of microplastic pollution and analysis of colonized-microbiota in a freshwater aquaculture system.

Researchers found microplastics averaging 288.53 items per liter in freshwater aquaculture ponds in China, dominated by transparent fibers and cellulose particles, and discovered that bacterial communities on microplastic surfaces had significantly higher species richness and diversity than those in surrounding water. The plastisphere communities were enriched with Proteobacteria, including cellulose-degrading and potentially pathogenic species.

2022 Environmental Pollution 38 citations
Article Tier 2

In Situ Investigation of Plastic-Associated Bacterial Communities in a Freshwater Lake of Hungary

Researchers investigated plastic-associated bacterial communities on microplastic surfaces in a Hungarian freshwater lake, finding that the plastisphere harbored distinct microbial communities compared to surrounding water, including potential pathogens and plastic-degrading bacteria.

2021 Water Air & Soil Pollution 30 citations
Article Tier 2

Biofilms in plastisphere from freshwater wetlands: Biofilm formation, bacterial community assembly, and biogeochemical cycles

Researchers studied how bacteria form biofilms on microplastic surfaces in freshwater wetlands and found that these plastic-associated communities differ significantly from natural soil bacteria. The microplastic biofilms had lower diversity but higher activity in carbon processing and nitrogen cycling genes. This means microplastics in wetlands can alter natural nutrient cycles, potentially affecting water quality in ecosystems that many communities rely on.

2024 Journal of Hazardous Materials 83 citations
Article Tier 2

Colonization Characteristics of Bacterial Communities on Plastic Debris Influenced by Environmental Factors and Polymer Types in the Haihe Estuary of Bohai Bay, China

Bacterial communities colonizing plastic debris in the Haihe Estuary of Bohai Bay, China, were shaped by both environmental factors (season, salinity, temperature) and the type of plastic polymer, with distinct microbial assemblages forming on different plastic surfaces. The results demonstrate that the "plastisphere" in estuarine environments is a dynamically structured microbial habitat.

2019 Environmental Science & Technology 257 citations
Article Tier 2

Niche vs. habitat: Insights of aging microplastics and wetland types on bacterial community assembly

Researchers studied how bacterial communities assemble on microplastic surfaces (plastispheres) versus surrounding soil in three types of wetlands using low-density polyethylene. They found that wetland habitat type had a stronger influence on bacterial diversity patterns than whether the plastic was virgin or aged, with plastisphere communities showing lower diversity and more stochastic assembly compared to soil communities.

2025 Journal of Environmental Sciences 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Edaphic Gradients Reshape Microbial Microenclaves Assembly within Plastispheres

Researchers sampled microplastics and surrounding soils at 27 urban wetland sites in China to study how bacteria colonize plastic surfaces, forming communities known as plastispheres. They found that plastispheres selectively recruit soil bacteria but harbor only 52-69% of the bacterial diversity found in adjacent soil. The study reveals that soil nutrient levels and moisture conditions strongly influence how these microplastic-associated microbial communities assemble.

2026 Environmental Science & Technology
Article Tier 2

Are bacterial communities associated with microplastics influenced by marine habitats?

A three-month field exposure experiment on a Chinese island compared bacterial communities on polyethylene and PET microplastics in three marine habitats (intertidal, supralittoral, seawater), finding that habitat significantly shaped community structure but polymer type had a weaker influence.

2020 The Science of The Total Environment 85 citations
Article Tier 2

Colonization characteristics of bacterial communities on microplastics compared with ambient environments (water and sediment) in Haihe Estuary

Bacterial communities colonizing microplastics in Haihe Estuary sediments and water were found to differ substantially from ambient environmental communities, with microplastics selecting for distinct bacterial assemblages including potential pathogens. This confirms that microplastics create ecological niches that alter microbial ecology in estuarine environments.

2019 The Science of The Total Environment 144 citations
Article Tier 2

Microbial Communities on Plastic Polymers in the Mediterranean Sea

Researchers collected floating microplastics from a bay in the Mediterranean and analyzed their bacterial biofilm communities using 16S rRNA sequencing, finding that microbial communities on plastics were distinct from surrounding seawater and differed between polymer types.

2021 Frontiers in Microbiology 125 citations
Article Tier 2

Plastisphere in Lakes: Biodiversity, Structure and Possible Implications for Freshwater Ecosystems

Researchers characterized prokaryotic and eukaryotic plastisphere communities on microplastics from four lakes in Italy using 16S and 18S rRNA high-throughput sequencing and fluorescence in situ hybridization with confocal laser scanning microscopy. Despite geographic variation among sites, plastisphere communities shared a core microbiome of known biofilm formers that was compositionally distinct from surrounding planktonic communities.

2022 Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Article Tier 2

Characterizing Microplastic Pollution and Microbial Community Status in Rice Paddy Soils Across Varied Environmental Settings in Songjiang, Shanghai: An Analysis of Morpho-Chemical Characteristics

Researchers characterized microplastic pollution and associated microbial communities in rice paddy soils, finding widespread microplastic contamination that correlated with shifts in soil bacterial diversity. Plastic-associated microbial communities differed from bulk soil communities, suggesting microplastics create distinct microbial niches in agricultural environments.

2024 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology (IJISRT) 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Contribution of stochastic processes to the microbial community assembly on field‐collected microplastics

Researchers found that stochastic processes played a greater role than deterministic factors in shaping bacterial community assembly on field-collected microplastics in the Hangzhou Bay estuary, challenging assumptions about the distinctiveness of the plastisphere.

2021 Environmental Microbiology 120 citations