Ups and Downs in the Ocean: Effects of Biofouling on Vertical Transport of Microplastics

By M. Kooi, E. V. van Nes, Marten Scheffer, A. Koelmans. Environmental Science and Technology, 2017

773 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Recent studies suggest size-selective removal of small plastic particles from the ocean surface, an observation that remains unexplained. We studied one of the hypotheses regarding this size-selective removal: the formation of a biofilm on the microplastics (biofouling). We developed the first theoretical model that is capable of simulating the effect of biofouling on the fate of microplastic. The model is based on settling, biofilm growth, and ocean depth profiles for light, water density, temperature, salinity, and viscosity. Using realistic parameters, the model simulates the vertical transport of small microplastic particles over time, and predicts that the particles either float, sink to the ocean floor, or oscillate vertically, depending on the size and density of the particle. The predicted size-dependent vertical movement of microplastic particles results in a maximum concentration at intermediate depths. Consequently, relatively low abundances of small particles are predicted at the ocean surface, while at the same time these small particles may never reach the ocean floor. Our results hint at the fate of “lost” plastic in the ocean, and provide a start for predicting risks of exposure to microplastics for potentially vulnerable species living at these depths.

Subfields: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Ocean Engineering, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0df4029f142fd465068fc6820e579a8badca138d

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Citations in the corpus

All is not lost: deriving a top-down mass budget of plastic at sea (2017, background): “Furthermore, it is known that chemical degradation of polymers results in weakening and fragmentation, and that biological colonization and aggregation can induce sinking of buoyant polymers (Kooi et al 2017).”
The quest for seafloor macrolitter: a critical review of background knowledge, current methods and future prospects (2020, background): “This is both because the processes that govern the sinking of plastic from the surface to the deep sea are very poorly understood (Katija et al 2017, Kooi et al 2017, Choy et al 2019, Tekman et al 2020), and also because the OGCMs typically have far less skill in the deep ocean than near the ocean…”
The physical oceanography of the transport of floating marine debris (2020, background): “…both positively and negatively buoyant particles in themixing layer (Kukulka et al 2012, Brunner et al 2015, Enders et al 2015, Reisser et al 2015, Kooi et al 2017, Poulain et al 2019), which, in the presence of the vertical shear of ocean currents, can then also affect their horizontal…”
A Global Perspective on Microplastics (2020, background): “Yet, the model also specified that particles 10 μm were likely to exit surface waters and remain suspended in the water column because of their extremely slow sinking rates (Kooi et al., 2017).”
Bioavailability and effects of microplastics on marine zooplankton: A review. (2019, background): “Kooi et al. (2017) predict that through biofouling there is a size-dependent vertical movement of microplastics which results in a maximum concentration at intermediate depths.”
Contributions of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy in microplastic pollution research: A review (2020, background): “…due to physical (wind wave action and mixing in-between the heavy and/or abrasive beach sediments) (Efimova et al., 2018; Chubarenko et al., 2020), chemical (UV light from solar radiation) (Andrady, 2011, 2017; Song et al., 2017) and biological (microorganisms) (Kooi et al., 2017) factors.”