Plastisphere

ut those interested in smaller critters have been given a whole, new sphere—the plastisphere—to study.

(The Plastisphere is one of the many industrial-natural ecosystems that characterize the Anthropocene.) Cleaning ocean plastics, even if it were technologically possible on a scale that would make a difference, would disrupt and destroy the life we would be trying to save in the first place.

Freshwater and marine habitats share a number of features, but there are also differences between them that may affect the development and activities of plastisphere consortia.

Plastic in the ocean is constantly being degraded; even something as big and buoyant as a milk jug will eventually shed and splinter into microplastics. These plastics develop biofilms of distinct microbial communities — the “plastisphere,” said Linda Amaral-Zettler, a scientist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, who coined the term. […] A sample of South Atlantic water containing plankton and microplastics. Ocean plastics commonly develop a filmy “plastisphere” of distinct microbial communities.