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The Terrestrial Plastisphere: Diversity and Polymer-Colonizing Potential of Plastic-Associated Microbial Communities in Soil

The concept of a ‘plastisphere microbial community’ arose from research on aquatic plastic debris, while the effect of plastics on microbial communities in soils remains poorly understood. Therefore, we examined the inhabiting microbial communities of two plastic debris ecosystems with regard to the...

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Autores principales: MacLean, Joana, Mayanna, Sathish, Benning, Liane G., Horn, Fabian, Bartholomäus, Alexander, Wiesner, Yosri, Wagner, Dirk, Liebner, Susanne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8465064/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34576771
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9091876
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author MacLean, Joana
Mayanna, Sathish
Benning, Liane G.
Horn, Fabian
Bartholomäus, Alexander
Wiesner, Yosri
Wagner, Dirk
Liebner, Susanne
author_facet MacLean, Joana
Mayanna, Sathish
Benning, Liane G.
Horn, Fabian
Bartholomäus, Alexander
Wiesner, Yosri
Wagner, Dirk
Liebner, Susanne
author_sort MacLean, Joana
collection PubMed
description The concept of a ‘plastisphere microbial community’ arose from research on aquatic plastic debris, while the effect of plastics on microbial communities in soils remains poorly understood. Therefore, we examined the inhabiting microbial communities of two plastic debris ecosystems with regard to their diversity and composition relative to plastic-free soils from the same area using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Furthermore, we studied the plastic-colonizing potential of bacteria originating from both study sites as a measure of surface adhesion to UV-weathered polyethylene (PE) using high-magnification field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The high plastic content of the soils was associated with a reduced alpha diversity and a significantly different structure of the microbial communities. The presence of plastic debris in soils did not specifically enrich bacteria known to degrade plastic, as suggested by earlier studies, but rather shifted the microbial community towards highly abundant autotrophic bacteria potentially tolerant to hydrophobic environments and known to be important for biocrust formation. The bacterial inoculates from both sites formed dense biofilms on the surface and in micrometer-scale surface cracks of the UV-weathered PE chips after 100 days of in vitro incubation with visible threadlike EPS structures and cross-connections enabling surface adhesion. High-resolution FESEM imaging further indicates that the microbial colonization catalyzed some of the surface degradation of PE. In essence, this study suggests the concept of a ‘terrestrial plastisphere’ as a diverse consortium of microorganisms including autotrophs and other pioneering species paving the way for those members of the consortium that may eventually break down the plastic compounds.
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spelling pubmed-84650642021-09-27 The Terrestrial Plastisphere: Diversity and Polymer-Colonizing Potential of Plastic-Associated Microbial Communities in Soil MacLean, Joana Mayanna, Sathish Benning, Liane G. Horn, Fabian Bartholomäus, Alexander Wiesner, Yosri Wagner, Dirk Liebner, Susanne Microorganisms Article The concept of a ‘plastisphere microbial community’ arose from research on aquatic plastic debris, while the effect of plastics on microbial communities in soils remains poorly understood. Therefore, we examined the inhabiting microbial communities of two plastic debris ecosystems with regard to their diversity and composition relative to plastic-free soils from the same area using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Furthermore, we studied the plastic-colonizing potential of bacteria originating from both study sites as a measure of surface adhesion to UV-weathered polyethylene (PE) using high-magnification field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The high plastic content of the soils was associated with a reduced alpha diversity and a significantly different structure of the microbial communities. The presence of plastic debris in soils did not specifically enrich bacteria known to degrade plastic, as suggested by earlier studies, but rather shifted the microbial community towards highly abundant autotrophic bacteria potentially tolerant to hydrophobic environments and known to be important for biocrust formation. The bacterial inoculates from both sites formed dense biofilms on the surface and in micrometer-scale surface cracks of the UV-weathered PE chips after 100 days of in vitro incubation with visible threadlike EPS structures and cross-connections enabling surface adhesion. High-resolution FESEM imaging further indicates that the microbial colonization catalyzed some of the surface degradation of PE. In essence, this study suggests the concept of a ‘terrestrial plastisphere’ as a diverse consortium of microorganisms including autotrophs and other pioneering species paving the way for those members of the consortium that may eventually break down the plastic compounds. MDPI 2021-09-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8465064/ /pubmed/34576771 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9091876 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
MacLean, Joana
Mayanna, Sathish
Benning, Liane G.
Horn, Fabian
Bartholomäus, Alexander
Wiesner, Yosri
Wagner, Dirk
Liebner, Susanne
The Terrestrial Plastisphere: Diversity and Polymer-Colonizing Potential of Plastic-Associated Microbial Communities in Soil
title The Terrestrial Plastisphere: Diversity and Polymer-Colonizing Potential of Plastic-Associated Microbial Communities in Soil
title_full The Terrestrial Plastisphere: Diversity and Polymer-Colonizing Potential of Plastic-Associated Microbial Communities in Soil
title_fullStr The Terrestrial Plastisphere: Diversity and Polymer-Colonizing Potential of Plastic-Associated Microbial Communities in Soil
title_full_unstemmed The Terrestrial Plastisphere: Diversity and Polymer-Colonizing Potential of Plastic-Associated Microbial Communities in Soil
title_short The Terrestrial Plastisphere: Diversity and Polymer-Colonizing Potential of Plastic-Associated Microbial Communities in Soil
title_sort terrestrial plastisphere: diversity and polymer-colonizing potential of plastic-associated microbial communities in soil
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8465064/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34576771
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9091876
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