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20 resultsShowing papers similar to What do we know about how the terrestrial multicellular soil fauna reacts to microplastic?
ClearWhat do we know about how the terrestrial multicellular soil fauna reacts to microplastic?
This review synthesized studies on how soil-dwelling animals — including earthworms, insects, and mites — respond to microplastic contamination, finding evidence of ingestion, tissue accumulation, and harmful effects across multiple soil organism groups. However, most studies used unrealistically high concentrations, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions about risks at current environmental levels.
What do we know about how the terrestrial multicellular soil fauna reacts to microplastic?
This review analyzed published studies on how multicellular soil organisms (including earthworms, mites, springtails, and nematodes) ingest and respond to microplastics, finding that most studies used unrealistically high concentrations and that ecologically relevant effects on soil fauna remain poorly characterized.
Implication of microplastics on soil faunal communities — identifying gaps of knowledge
This systematic review examines how microplastics in soil affect earthworms, springtails, mites, and other soil-dwelling creatures that are essential for healthy soil. The impacts are highly variable and depend on the type of plastic, particle size, and soil conditions, making broad conclusions difficult. The review identifies critical knowledge gaps, noting that most studies use unrealistically high microplastic concentrations, and calls for research at levels that match actual field conditions.
Interaction of Invertebrates and Synthetic Polymers in Soil: A Review
This review summarizes how microplastics in soil harm invertebrates including nematodes, springtails, and earthworms, while some soil animals can fragment or ingest and transport plastic particles. The presence of microplastics in soil disrupts the gut function of soil organisms that play critical roles in maintaining healthy, productive soils.
Assessing the impacts of microplastics on soil meso- and macro-fauna
This study aims to extend understanding of microplastic impacts beyond earthworms to include mites, collembolans, and other key soil invertebrate groups, developing ecotoxicology tests to establish risk assessment levels for microplastics in soil ecosystems.
The Impact of Microplastics on Soil Invertebrates
Microplastics have been detected throughout soils worldwide, and this editorial review summarises growing evidence that soil invertebrates — including earthworms, springtails, and beetles — ingest, accumulate, and are harmed by microplastic particles. Effects range from physical gut damage and reduced feeding to reproductive impairment, with cascading risks to soil health, nutrient cycling, and the broader food web. This matters because soil invertebrates are keystone organisms; harm to them can degrade the agricultural and ecological services that soils provide.
Plastic pollution in terrestrial ecosystems: Current knowledge on impacts of micro and nano fragments on invertebrates
This review summarizes research on how micro- and nanoplastics affect soil-dwelling invertebrates like earthworms and insects, finding that effects vary widely depending on plastic type, shape, concentration, and exposure time. While no broad conclusions could be drawn, the documented sublethal effects on soil organisms could disrupt the soil ecosystems that support the crops humans depend on for food.
Microplastics as Emerging Soil Pollutants
This review covers how microplastics enter and accumulate in soils, their effects on soil health, microbial communities, soil fauna, and plant growth, and the implications of widespread soil plastic contamination for ecosystem function.
Underestimated and ignored? The impacts of microplastic on soil invertebrates—Current scientific knowledge and research needs
This review highlights the critical gap in research on how microplastics affect soil invertebrates, noting that soil ecosystems receive far more plastic pollution than oceans yet the ecological consequences for soil fauna remain poorly understood and largely unstudied.
Interactions between microplastics and soil fauna: A critical review
This review summarizes how microplastics affect soil animals like earthworms and nematodes, which play crucial roles in maintaining healthy soil. Microplastics can harm these organisms through ingestion, tissue damage, oxidative stress, and disruption of their gut bacteria, reducing their ability to decompose organic matter and cycle nutrients. In turn, soil animals can break down and spread microplastics through the soil, potentially transferring them up the food chain to animals and humans.
Effects of pristine microplastics and nanoplastics on soil invertebrates: A systematic review and meta-analysis of available data
About 49% of 1,061 biological endpoints were significantly affected by pristine micro- and nanoplastics across 56 studies on soil invertebrates, with polymers containing chloro and phenyl groups causing the most harm; concentrations above 1 g/kg in soil decreased earthworm growth and survival.
Microplastics are transferred by soil fauna and regulate soil function as material carriers
Springtail soil invertebrates were found to actively transport microplastics through soil and to transfer them and their adsorbed contaminants during feeding activity. Microplastic-laden springtails also suppressed soil organic matter decomposition, demonstrating that soil fauna mediate both the spatial redistribution and the functional impacts of microplastic pollution.
Microplastic-Earthworm Interactions: A Critical Review
This critical review examines how microplastics from diverse plastic waste categories accumulate in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and interact with earthworms, a key soil organism. The authors synthesize evidence on the deleterious effects of increasing microplastic concentrations on soil properties, microbiota, and earthworm physiology.
Effects of environmentally relevant mixtures of microplastics on soil organisms
Researchers exposed earthworms and springtails to environmentally realistic mixtures of microplastics commonly found in agricultural soils treated with sewage sludge. They found that earthworms ingested microplastics in proportion to exposure levels, and at higher concentrations, both species showed reduced reproduction. The study provides evidence that real-world microplastic mixtures in farm soils can affect important soil organisms at concentrations already found in the environment.
Interactions of Microplastics Toward an Ecological Risk in Soil Diversity
This review examines the ecological risks of microplastics in soil environments, discussing their sources, global distribution, mechanisms of entry into soil food webs, effects on microbial communities and soil fauna, biomagnification through trophic levels, and implications for soil ecosystem services and biodiversity.
Micro Plastic Pollution in Soil Environment: A Comprehensive Review
This comprehensive review covers sources, distribution, degradation pathways, and ecological effects of microplastics in soil environments, highlighting threats to soil fauna, microbiota, and plant growth.
The forgotten impacts of plastic contamination on terrestrial micro- and mesofauna: A call for research
This review highlights the overlooked impact of microplastics on tiny soil organisms like mites, springtails, and nematodes that play critical roles in keeping soil ecosystems healthy. Ingesting microplastics can harm their development and reproduction, which disrupts nutrient cycling and soil food webs. Since these organisms help maintain the soil that grows our food, their decline from plastic pollution could have cascading effects on agriculture and human nutrition.
The extent and impacts of soil pollution by microplastics
This study examines the extent and impacts of soil pollution by microplastics, reviewing evidence of how microplastic particles accumulate in terrestrial environments and affect soil ecosystems, organisms, and agricultural systems.
Effects of environmentally relevant mixtures of microplastics on terrestrial organisms
Researchers tested the effects of environmentally realistic microplastic mixtures on the earthworm Eisenia andrei and the springtail Folsomia candida as soil model organisms. Even at environmentally relevant concentrations, the microplastic mixture caused measurable negative effects on soil organism health and reproduction.
Soils in distress: The impacts and ecological risks of (micro)plastic pollution in the terrestrial environment
This review examines how microplastics affect soil ecosystems, including their transport into soils, changes they undergo in the environment, and their interactions with soil organisms. The effects depend heavily on the type, shape, size, and amount of plastic particles present. Understanding these impacts is important because soil contamination with microplastics can affect food production and ultimately human exposure through the food chain.