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Hitchhiking into the Deep: How Microplastic Particles are Exported through the Biological Carbon Pump in the North Atlantic Ocean

[Image: see text] Understanding residence times of plastic in the ocean is a major knowledge gap in plastic pollution studies. Observations report a large mismatch between plastic load estimates from worldwide production and disposal and actual plastics floating at the sea surface. Surveys of the wa...

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Autores principales: Galgani, Luisa, Goßmann, Isabel, Scholz-Böttcher, Barbara, Jiang, Xiangtao, Liu, Zhanfei, Scheidemann, Lindsay, Schlundt, Cathleen, Engel, Anja
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Chemical Society 2022
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9670853/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36302504
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c04712
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author Galgani, Luisa
Goßmann, Isabel
Scholz-Böttcher, Barbara
Jiang, Xiangtao
Liu, Zhanfei
Scheidemann, Lindsay
Schlundt, Cathleen
Engel, Anja
author_facet Galgani, Luisa
Goßmann, Isabel
Scholz-Böttcher, Barbara
Jiang, Xiangtao
Liu, Zhanfei
Scheidemann, Lindsay
Schlundt, Cathleen
Engel, Anja
author_sort Galgani, Luisa
collection PubMed
description [Image: see text] Understanding residence times of plastic in the ocean is a major knowledge gap in plastic pollution studies. Observations report a large mismatch between plastic load estimates from worldwide production and disposal and actual plastics floating at the sea surface. Surveys of the water column, from the surface to the deep sea, are rare. Most recent work, therefore, addressed the “missing plastic” question using modeling or laboratory approaches proposing biofouling and degradation as the main removal processes in the ocean. Through organic matrices, plastic can affect the biogeochemical and microbial cycling of carbon and nutrients. For the first time, we provide in situ measured vertical fluxes of microplastics deploying drifting sediment traps in the North Atlantic Gyre from 50 m down to 600 m depth, showing that through biogenic polymers plastic can be embedded into rapidly sinking particles also known as marine snow. We furthermore show that the carbon contained in plastic can represent up to 3.8% of the total downward flux of particulate organic carbon. Our results shed light on important pathways regulating the transport of microplastics in marine systems and on potential interactions with the marine carbon cycle, suggesting microplastic removal through the “biological plastic pump”.
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spelling pubmed-96708532022-11-18 Hitchhiking into the Deep: How Microplastic Particles are Exported through the Biological Carbon Pump in the North Atlantic Ocean Galgani, Luisa Goßmann, Isabel Scholz-Böttcher, Barbara Jiang, Xiangtao Liu, Zhanfei Scheidemann, Lindsay Schlundt, Cathleen Engel, Anja Environ Sci Technol [Image: see text] Understanding residence times of plastic in the ocean is a major knowledge gap in plastic pollution studies. Observations report a large mismatch between plastic load estimates from worldwide production and disposal and actual plastics floating at the sea surface. Surveys of the water column, from the surface to the deep sea, are rare. Most recent work, therefore, addressed the “missing plastic” question using modeling or laboratory approaches proposing biofouling and degradation as the main removal processes in the ocean. Through organic matrices, plastic can affect the biogeochemical and microbial cycling of carbon and nutrients. For the first time, we provide in situ measured vertical fluxes of microplastics deploying drifting sediment traps in the North Atlantic Gyre from 50 m down to 600 m depth, showing that through biogenic polymers plastic can be embedded into rapidly sinking particles also known as marine snow. We furthermore show that the carbon contained in plastic can represent up to 3.8% of the total downward flux of particulate organic carbon. Our results shed light on important pathways regulating the transport of microplastics in marine systems and on potential interactions with the marine carbon cycle, suggesting microplastic removal through the “biological plastic pump”. American Chemical Society 2022-10-27 2022-11-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9670853/ /pubmed/36302504 http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c04712 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Permits non-commercial access and re-use, provided that author attribution and integrity are maintained; but does not permit creation of adaptations or other derivative works (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Galgani, Luisa
Goßmann, Isabel
Scholz-Böttcher, Barbara
Jiang, Xiangtao
Liu, Zhanfei
Scheidemann, Lindsay
Schlundt, Cathleen
Engel, Anja
Hitchhiking into the Deep: How Microplastic Particles are Exported through the Biological Carbon Pump in the North Atlantic Ocean
title Hitchhiking into the Deep: How Microplastic Particles are Exported through the Biological Carbon Pump in the North Atlantic Ocean
title_full Hitchhiking into the Deep: How Microplastic Particles are Exported through the Biological Carbon Pump in the North Atlantic Ocean
title_fullStr Hitchhiking into the Deep: How Microplastic Particles are Exported through the Biological Carbon Pump in the North Atlantic Ocean
title_full_unstemmed Hitchhiking into the Deep: How Microplastic Particles are Exported through the Biological Carbon Pump in the North Atlantic Ocean
title_short Hitchhiking into the Deep: How Microplastic Particles are Exported through the Biological Carbon Pump in the North Atlantic Ocean
title_sort hitchhiking into the deep: how microplastic particles are exported through the biological carbon pump in the north atlantic ocean
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9670853/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36302504
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c04712
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