There's a lot of plastic. Both on land and in the oceans.
Finding ways to break down that plastic, particularly via bioremediation, is an important field of study.
Chinese researchers have been investigating the coastal salt marshes in Jiangsu and have found dozens of bacterial and fungal species deemed a "plastisphere microbiome" capable of plastic breakdown.
#Plastic #Plastisphere #Microbiome #Science #Biology #Bioremediation #Scicomm
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304389423006829?via%3Dihub
@sterlingericsson
I wonder if that biome (or parts of it) won't be the doom of plastic use wherever it is exposed to the environment. If it feeds of plastic, it should degrade any plastic in principle, right?
@plastisphere
@sterlingericsson @plastisphere
Interesting, I see. I didn't quite catch the salt marshes aspect.
@cweickhmann @plastisphere In principle, sure, though I would expect that with the location being salt marshes, the bacteria have other specific requirements for proper growth.
So I don't expect them to naturally spread beyond that unique location without some massive circumstance or action on our parts.