Abstract
Major water-polluting microplastics (for example, polyethylene, polypropylene and others) have lower density than water. Therefore, they are concentrated in the neustonic layer near the water-air interface altogether with dissolved or colloidal natural organic matter, hydrophobic cells and spores of bacteria. This can cause environmental and public health problems because the floating micro- and nanoparticles of plastics could be coated with biofilm of hydrophobic and often putative pathogenic bacteria. Biofilm-coated microplastics are more attractive for consumption by aquatic animals than pure microplastics, and that increases the negative impacts of microplastics. So, impacts of even small quantities of microplastics in aquatic environments must be accounted for considering their accumulation in the micro-layer of water-air interphase and its interaction with bacterioneuston. Microorganisms attached to the surface of microplastic particles could interact with them, use them as substrates for growth, to change properties and biodegrade. The study of microbial life on the surface of microplastic particles is one of the key topics to understanding their role in the environment.
Highlights
Plastic pollution has become one of the most widespread recalcitrant environmental contaminants
No higher content of potential pathogens in biofilms covered polystyrene and polyethylene microplastic particles compared to biofilm communities of wood pellets was observed, and it was shown that wooden particles and other natural materials were colonized by Vibrio bacteria even much higher than microplastics [86]
It was found that sequences from such bacterial genera as Klebsiella, Pseudomonas and Sphingomonas were more abundant in biofilm on microplastic in effluent from WWTP than in sewage, so it can be due to the ability of these microorganism to use microplastics as growth substrates which leads to their degradation [94]
Summary
Plastic pollution has become one of the most widespread recalcitrant environmental contaminants. The character of plastic and microplastic distribution in the layers of water can be changed in time due to its colonization by microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi and algae forming biofilm on plastic surfaces that cause an increase of microplastic density. The composition of microbial communities of biofilms attached to polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride microplastics in seawater varied depending on location and time of exposure, but bacteria from the Alphaproteobacteria class, mainly Rhodobacteraceae, dominated, followed by the Gammaproteobacteria class [68]. Study of bacterial community composition of biofilms developed in seawater on the low- and high-density polyethylene, and polypropylene showed that differences in biofilm composition were stronger after one week of incubation and were not so dramatically at the latest stages of the biofilm formation when representatives of families such as Flavobacteriaceae, Rhodobacteraceae, Planctomycetaceae and Phyllobacteriaceae were abundant on all surfaces [69]. Current, water movement, and weather conditions affect movement of MPs with adsorbed microbial cells, so, MPs may play the role of vectors for microorganism’s distribution
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