Food or just a free ride? A meta-analysis reveals the global diversity of the Plastisphere

It is now indisputable that plastics are ubiquitous and problematic in ecosystems globally. Many suggestions have been made about the role that biofilms colonizing plastics in the environment—termed the “Plastisphere”—may play in the transportation and ecological impact of these plastics. By collect...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The ISME Journal 2021-03, Vol.15 (3), p.789-806
Main Authors: Wright, Robyn J., Langille, Morgan G. I., Walker, Tony R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
38/23
631/326/171/1818
631/326/171/1878
631/326/2565/2134
631/326/2565/855
704/158/855
Aquaculture
Biofilms
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Ecology
Ecosystem
Environmental factors
Evolutionary Biology
Gene sequencing
Life Sciences
Meta-analysis
Microbial Ecology
Microbial Genetics and Genomics
Microbiology
Plastics
RNA, Ribosomal, 16S - genetics
rRNA 16S
Terrestrial environments
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Summary:It is now indisputable that plastics are ubiquitous and problematic in ecosystems globally. Many suggestions have been made about the role that biofilms colonizing plastics in the environment—termed the “Plastisphere”—may play in the transportation and ecological impact of these plastics. By collecting and re-analyzing all raw 16S rRNA gene sequencing and metadata from 2,229 samples within 35 studies, we have performed the first meta-analysis of the Plastisphere in marine, freshwater, other aquatic (e.g., brackish or aquaculture) and terrestrial environments. We show that random forest models can be trained to differentiate between groupings of environmental factors as well as aspects of study design, but—crucially—also between plastics when compared with control biofilms and between different plastic types and community successional stages. Our meta-analysis confirms that potentially biodegrading Plastisphere members, the hydrocarbonoclastic Oceanospirillales and Alteromonadales are consistently more abundant in plastic than control biofilm samples across multiple studies and environments. This indicates the predilection of these organisms for plastics and confirms the urgent need for their ability to biodegrade plastics to be comprehensively tested. We also identified key knowledge gaps that should be addressed by future studies.
ISSN:1751-7362
1751-7370
DOI:10.1038/s41396-020-00814-9