Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

Root traits and rhizosphere responses as emerging bioindicators of microplastic pollution in agricultural soils: A review

This review examines how microplastic pollution in agricultural soils disrupts root growth, nutrient uptake, and the beneficial interactions between plant roots and soil microbes. Researchers found that microplastics can alter root exudation patterns, change soil structure, and shift microbial communities around roots in ways that may impair crop productivity. The study proposes that root traits and rhizosphere responses could serve as early warning indicators of microplastic contamination in farmland.

2026 Environmental Research 1 citations
Review Tier 2

Soil and Phytomicrobiome for Plant Disease Suppression and Management under Climate Change: A Review

This review examines how soil microorganisms can be harnessed to suppress plant diseases through farming practices like crop rotation, cover cropping, and applying beneficial microbes. While not directly about microplastics, soil health is increasingly threatened by plastic contamination, which can disrupt the microbial communities that protect crops. Understanding these plant-microbe interactions is important as microplastic pollution in agricultural soils continues to grow.

2023 Plants 84 citations
Article Tier 2

Modifying Rhizobacteria for Improved Plant Growth and Soil Health in Sustainable Agriculture

This review examined how modifying plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria can improve both plant growth and soil health in sustainable agriculture by enhancing nutrient cycling, disease suppression, and stress tolerance. The paper discussed strategies for engineering rhizobacterial strains to maximize their agronomic benefits.

2024 passer 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Plant-driven strategies for mitigating microplastic pollution in agricultural ecosystems

Researchers review how microplastics damage agricultural soils and crops — disrupting soil structure, starving plants of nutrients, and triggering oxidative stress — and explore plant- and microbe-based strategies like root-associated bacteria and biochar amendments as promising but underexplored tools for cleaning up plastic-contaminated farmland.

2025 Hygiene and Environmental Health Advances
Article Tier 2

Effects of micro and nanoplastics on plant-assisted bioremediation for contaminated soil recovery: A review

This review examines how the growing presence of micro- and nanoplastics in contaminated soils affects plant-assisted bioremediation, finding that microplastics disrupt the plant-microbe rhizosphere interactions that make phytoremediation effective for removing heavy metals and degrading organic pollutants.

2025 The Science of The Total Environment
Article Tier 2

Effects of micro(nano)plastics on higher plants and the rhizosphere environment

This review examines how micro- and nanoplastics affect higher plants and the soil environment around their roots. Researchers found that these particles can be absorbed through roots and transported to other plant tissues, causing oxidative stress and disrupting photosynthesis, metabolism, and gene expression. The study highlights that plastic pollution in soil threatens not only plant health but also the broader rhizosphere ecosystem that supports agriculture.

2021 The Science of The Total Environment 183 citations
Article Tier 2

Effect of microplastics on the soil-plant system: A perspective on rhizosphere microbial community and soil element cycling

This study provides supporting dataset for a review examining how microplastics affect soil-plant systems, with a focus on rhizosphere microbial community composition and element cycling processes in contaminated soils.

2024 Figshare
Article Tier 2

Regulatory Mechanisms of Plant Growth-Promoting Bacteria in Alleviating Microplastic and Heavy Metal Combined Pollution: Insights from Plant Growth and Metagenomic Analysis

Researchers used metagenomic sequencing to investigate how plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) mitigate the combined toxicity of microplastics and heavy metals on plant growth. PGPB inoculation restored rhizosphere microbial function and reduced plant stress, revealing microbiome-mediated mechanisms for alleviating mixed pollutant toxicity.

2025 Agronomy
Article Tier 2

‘OMICS’ Studies on Rhizosphere-Microorganism Interactions in Soils

This review covers OMICS approaches—genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics—used to study how plant root microbiomes interact with soil in the context of pollutants including microplastics and heavy metals. It highlights how rhizosphere microorganisms mediate phytoremediation and discusses multi-resistance challenges when pharmaceuticals and pesticides co-contaminate soils.

2025 BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBLISHERS eBooks
Article Tier 2

Rhizosphere microbial activities in response to combined effects of drought and microplastic

Researchers studied how combined drought stress and microplastic contamination affect rhizosphere microbial activities, finding that microplastics exacerbated drought-induced suppression of soil enzyme activities and altered microbial community structure around plant roots.

2024
Article Tier 2

Impact of Nanoplastic Contamination on Rhizosphere Microbiome and Plant Phenotype

This study examined how nanoplastic contamination affects the rhizosphere microbiome (soil bacteria around plant roots) and plant growth. Nanoplastic exposure altered soil microbial communities and reduced plant growth, suggesting these tiny plastic particles could disrupt the soil ecosystems that support food production.

2023
Article Tier 2

Potential strategies for bioremediation of microplastic contaminated soil

Researchers reviewed emerging bioremediation strategies for removing microplastics from contaminated soil, highlighting the roles of plants, root-zone microbes, soil animals like earthworms, and specialized bacteria and fungi that can use enzymes to break down plastic polymers into harmless compounds. While genetic engineering of microbes shows promise for accelerating degradation, the review notes that real-world application at scale still requires significant research and development.

2024 Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology 47 citations
Article Tier 2

Role of soil microplastic pollution in climate change

This review examined the bidirectional relationship between soil microplastic pollution and climate change, exploring how microplastics affect soil carbon cycling, greenhouse gas emissions, and how climate factors influence microplastic behavior in soils.

2023 The Science of The Total Environment 56 citations
Article Tier 2

Micro and nano-plastics on environmental health: a review on future thrust in agro-ecotoxicology management

This review examines the growing body of evidence on how microplastics and nanoplastics affect plant health, soil microbial communities, and agricultural productivity. The study highlights that plastic accumulation in agricultural soils can alter crop growth and yield while disrupting soil ecosystem dynamics, and calls for greater attention to agro-ecotoxicology management to address these emerging threats to food production.

2025 Environmental Geochemistry and Health 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Rhizospheric bacterial communities against microplastics (MPs): Novel ecological strategies based on the niche differentiation

Researchers studied how bacterial communities living around plant roots adapt when exposed to microplastics in soil. They found that rhizosphere bacteria developed distinct survival strategies depending on their ecological niche, with some species thriving while others declined in the presence of plastics. The study reveals that microplastics can reshape the microbial communities that plants depend on for nutrient uptake and disease resistance.

2024 Journal of Hazardous Materials 6 citations
Article Tier 2

Exploring the ameliorative effects of brassinolide on microplastic-induced stress in the rhizosphere microecology of Pinellia ternata

Researchers investigated how brassinolide (BR) application modifies the rhizosphere microecology of Pinellia ternata under microplastic stress, finding that BR altered soil chemical properties and microbial community structure in ways that ameliorated microplastic-induced adverse effects. The study provides evidence that plant hormone treatments can partially restore rhizosphere ecology disrupted by microplastic contamination.

2024
Article Tier 2

Micro (nano) plastic pollution: The ecological influence on soil-plant system and human health.

This review examines how micro- and nanoplastics affect soil health, plant growth, and food quality, finding that these particles accumulate in plant root systems and can reduce crop yields and alter nutritional content. Since contaminated soil and water are increasingly delivering microplastics to food crops, these findings are directly relevant to agricultural food safety.

2021 The Science of the total environment
Article Tier 2

Transboundary impacts of microplastics within planetary boundaries: Regulation and responses of soil-plant systems under climate change

This review examines how climate change and microplastic pollution interact to create compounding threats to soil and plant health. Higher temperatures speed up plastic breakdown into smaller, more dangerous particles, while heavy rain and wind spread them further through soil and groundwater. These processes can disrupt soil nutrients and plant growth, ultimately threatening the food supply and human health through contaminated crops.

2025 Environmental Research 5 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastic particles alter wheat rhizosphere soil microbial community composition and function

Researchers found that microplastic particles altered wheat rhizosphere soil microbial community composition and function, with different polymer types inducing distinct shifts in bacterial diversity and nutrient cycling processes.

2022 Journal of Hazardous Materials 139 citations
Article Tier 2

Extraction of Microplastics from Rhizosphere

This chapter reviews methods for extracting microplastics from the rhizosphere -- the soil zone surrounding plant roots -- where microplastics from consumer products, synthetic textiles, tires, and mulching films accumulate. The authors discuss the hazardous impact of rhizospheric microplastic contamination and the analytical challenges of isolating particles from complex soil matrices.

2024
Article Tier 2

Microplastic stress in plants: effects on plant growth and their remediations

This review examines how microplastic contamination in soil affects plant growth through multiple pathways, including blocking water and nutrient absorption through roots, triggering harmful levels of reactive oxygen species, and disrupting hormone regulation. The effects vary depending on the type, size, and amount of microplastic present. Since plants are the foundation of our food supply, understanding how microplastics impair crop health is directly relevant to food safety and human nutrition.

2023 Frontiers in Plant Science 188 citations
Article Tier 2

Effects of nanoplastics and compound pollutants containing nanoplastics on plants, microorganisms and rhizosphere systems: A review

This review summarizes how nanoplastics, the tiniest plastic particles, affect plants, soil microorganisms, and the root zone where they interact. Nanoplastics can disrupt photosynthesis, alter gene activity, and reduce microbial diversity, and their harmful effects get worse when they combine with heavy metals or other pollutants. Since plant roots are a key pathway for nanoplastics to enter the food chain, these effects could ultimately impact the safety and nutritional quality of the food we eat.

2025 Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 5 citations
Article Tier 2

The Effect of Microplastic Pollution on Soil, Plants and Soil Microbes and Its Remediation

This review summarized evidence for microplastic effects on soil properties, plant growth, soil microbes, and food safety, identifying microplastic pollution as a significant emerging threat to terrestrial ecosystems. The authors also reviewed bioremediation and physical removal strategies as potential remediation approaches.

2022 Egyptian Journal of Soil Science 13 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastic/nanoplastic toxicity in plants: an imminent concern

This review examines the growing body of research on how microplastics and nanoplastics affect terrestrial plants, from root uptake to changes in growth and gene expression. Researchers found that these particles can alter plant physiology and biochemistry at varying degrees depending on particle size and concentration. The study calls for more research on how plastic contamination in soil may ultimately affect food crop quality and human health through the food chain.

2022 Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 182 citations