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

Robyn J. Wright; Morgan G.I. Langille; Tony R. Walker

doi:10.1038/s41396-020-00814-9

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

Robyn J. Wright, Morgan G.I. Langille, Tony R. Walker

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

164 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

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.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	789-806
Number of pages	18
Journal	ISME Journal
Volume	15
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-020-00814-9
Publication status	Published - Mar 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgements RJW gratefully acknowledges funding from Waitrose & Partners as part of the Association of Commonwealth Universities Blue Charter Program and thanks members of the Christie-Oleza (University of Warwick, UK, and University of the Balearic Islands, Spain) and Langille labs (Dalhousie University, Canada) for insightful discussions and advice. MGIL and TRW acknowledge support from NSERC Discovery Grants 2016–05039 and 2018–04119, respectively. We would also like to thank the authors of all studies that are included in this analysis for making their data accessible, as well as those that responded to requests for additional data or clarification on aspects of their methodology.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

Microbiology
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

PubMed: MeSH publication types

Journal Article
Meta-Analysis
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1038/s41396-020-00814-9

Cite this

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abstract = "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.",

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

Abstract

Bibliographical note

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

PubMed: MeSH publication types

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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