Effects of Microplastics in Soil Ecosystems: Above and Below Ground.
By B. Boots, C. Russell, D. Green. Environmental Science and Technology, 2019
1,130 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Environmental contamination by microplastics is now considered an emerging threat to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Soil ecosystems, particularly agricultural land, have been recognized as a major sink of microplastics, but the impacts of microplastics on soil ecosystems (e.g., above and below ground) remain largely unknown. In this study, different types of microplastics [biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA)], conventional high-density polyethylene (HDPE), and microplastic clothing fibers were added to soil containing the endogeic Aporrectodea rosea (rosy-tipped earthworm) and planted with Lolium perenne (perennial ryegrass) to assess the biophysical soil response in a mesocosm experiment. When exposed to fibers or PLA microplastics, fewer seeds germinated. There was also a reduction in shoot height with PLA. The biomass of A. rosea exposed to HDPE was significantly reduced compared to control samples. Furthermore, with HDPE present there was a decrease in soil pH. The size distribution of water-stable soil aggregates was altered when microplastics were present, suggesting potential alterations of soil stability. This study provides evidence that microplastics manufactured of HDPE and PLA, and synthetic fibers can affect the development of L. perenne, health of A. rosea and basic, but crucial soil properties, with potential further impacts on soil ecosystem functioning.
Subfields: Biomaterials, Pollution
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4d6f5640911de4e87fd1317b10146128370e8ab1
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Biomaterials
In Pollution
Citations in the corpus
- Environmental performance comparison of bioplastics and petrochemical plastics: A review of life cycle assessment (LCA) methodological decisions (2021, background): “Microplastics have been found to affect soil ecosystems, negatively influencing factors such as germination success, shoot length, earthworm weight, soil structure, and pH (Boots et al., 2019).”
- Microplastic fiber and drought effects on plants and soil are only slightly modified by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (2020, background): “The available literature suggests that polyester microfibers>3 mm increase (Zhang and Zhang, 2020) while microfibers < 3 mm decrease MWD (Machado et al., 2018b; Boots et al., 2019; Machado et al., 2019).”