Plastic habitats: Algal biofilms on photic and aphotic plastics

Journal of Hazardous Materials Letters

Antonia Law¹  Imogen L. Smith²  Thomas Stanton³ 

[1] School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Brackenhurst Campus, Southwell, NG25 0QF, United Kingdom;School of Geography, Geology, and the Environment, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, United Kingdom;School of Geography, University of Nottingham, NG7 2RD, United Kingdom;

关键词: Plastic pollution;    Biofilms;    Freshwater;    Algae and diatoms;    Microplastic;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Plastic pollution is abundant in aquatic environments worldwide and many of its detrimental impacts are well documented, but it also represents a novel substrate available to a diversity of organisms. Biofilms – assemblages of bacteria, algae, and fungi – colonise hard surfaces in aquatic environments. They are key agents in biogeochemical cycling and are a food source for grazing organisms, representing a keystone aquatic community, and are known to influence the fate of plastic pollution in aquatic environments. In one of the most temporally thorough assessments of biofilm development on freshwater plastics, here we report on the evolution of algal biofilm assemblages on three plastic polymers (Low Density Polyethylene, Polypropylene, and Polyethylene Terephthalate) over six weeks in the photic and aphotic zones of a freshwater reservoir in Staffordshire, UK. Significant differences were found between diatom assemblages on plastics in the photic and aphotic zones, and between diatom assemblages quantified on weeks 2, 4 and 6 of the study, but total algal photosynthetic pigment concentrations did not vary significantly between polymers in either zone. Scanning Electron Microscopy indicates that degradation of polymer surfaces occurs within six weeks in the aphotic zone, with potential implications for plastic fragmentation and microplastic generation.

【 授权许可】

Unknown