Effects of photoaging on structure and characteristics of biofilms on microplastic in soil: Biomass and microbial community

Abstract

Understanding of the environmental behaviors of microplastics is limited by a lack of knowledge about how photoaging influences biofilm formation on microplastics in soil. Here, original microplastics (OMPs) and photoaged-microplastics (AMPs) were incubated in soil to study the effect of photoaging on formation and characteristics of biofilm on the poly (butylene succinate) microplastics. Because photoaging decreased the hydrophobicity of the microplastic, the biomass of biofilm on the OMPs was nearly twice that on the AMPs in the early stage of incubation. However, the significance of the substrate on biomass in the biofilm declined as the plastisphere developed. The bacterial communities in the plastisphere were distinct from, and less diverse than, those in surrounding soil. The dominant genera in the OMPs and AMPs plastispheres were Achromobacter and Burkholderia, respectively, indicating that photoaging changed the composition of the bacterial community of biofilm at the genus level. Meantime, photoaging decreased the complexity and stability of the plastisphere bacterial community network. Results of Biolog ECO-microplate assays and functional prediction from amplicons showed that photoaging treatment enhanced the carbon metabolic capacity of the microplastic biofilm. This study provides new insights into the formation of plastispheres in soil.