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| Image 1: Bacteria attacking plastic bottle. Image taken from affairscloud.com |
Humans have been slowly impacting
the ecosystems surrounding us. However, new research has shown that we can
combat this problem using an approach known as bio-remediation. Bio-remediation
utilizes microbes to degrade contaminants in soil and water. In our last post
we looked at microbes that were used in degrading oil contaminants. This week
we look at the possible degradation of plastics in our oceans. Plastic marine
debris (PMD) is among the top contaminants when it comes to debris in the
ocean. However, a recent study looked at the bacteria in the “Plastisphere,”
which includes plastics and the bacteria that colonize these plastic surfaces. What
they found was microbes actually were able to colonize on the hydrophobic
surface of plastics fairly easily, meaning that plastics are actually
beneficial for microbes to a certain extent. They also found that the microbes
present in this plastisphere contained a diverse microbial community consisting
of heterotrophs, autotrophs, predators, and symbiont that were able to degrade
hydrocarbon polymers present in plastics. More studies are being done to
implement this finding for degradation in land fills.
Zettler E, Mincer T, Amaral-Zettler L (2013) Life in the
“plastisphere”: Microbial communities on plastic marine debris. Environ Sci Technol
47:7137–7146.
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