School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, GR-73100, Chania, Greece.
School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, GR-73100, Chania, Greece; Institute of GeoEnergy, Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas, GR-73100, Chania, Greece.
Water Res. 2023 Nov 1;246:120687. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2023.120687. Epub 2023 Sep 30.
Marine plastics, with their negative effects on marine life and the human health, have been recently recognized as a new niche for the colonization and development of marine biofilms. Members of the colonizing communities could possess the potential for plastic biodegradation. Thus, there is an urgent need to characterize these complex and geographically variable communities and elucidate the functionalities. In this work, we characterize the fungal and bacterial colonizers of 5 types of plastic films (High Density Polyethylene, Low Density Polyethylene, Polypropylene, Polystyrene and Polyethylene Terepthalate) over the course of a 242-day incubation in the south-eastern Mediterranean and relate them to the chemical changes observed on the surface of the samples via ATR-FTIR. The 16s rRNA and ITS2 ribosomal regions of the plastisphere communities were sequenced on four time points (35, 152, 202 and 242 days). The selection of the time points was dictated by the occurrence of a severe storm which removed biological fouling from the surface of the samples and initiated a second colonization period. The bacterial communities, dominated by Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes, were the most variable and diverse. Fungal communities, characterized mainly by the presence of Ascomycota, were not significantly affected by the storm. Neither bacterial nor fungal community structure were related to the polymer type acting as substrate, while the surface of the plastic samples underwent weathering of oscillating degrees with time. This work examines the long-term development of Mediterranean epiplastic biofilms and is the first to examine how primary colonization influences the microbial community re-attachment and succession as a response to extreme weather events. Finally, it is one of the few studies to examine fungal communities, despite them containing putative plastic degraders.
海洋塑料因其对海洋生物和人类健康的负面影响，最近被认为是海洋生物膜定植和发展的一个新领域。定植群落的成员可能具有塑料生物降解的潜力。因此，迫切需要对这些复杂且具有地理差异的群落进行特征描述，并阐明其功能。在这项工作中，我们对东南地中海地区 5 种塑料薄膜（高密度聚乙烯、低密度聚乙烯、聚丙烯、聚苯乙烯和聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯）上的真菌和细菌定植者进行了特征描述，这些塑料薄膜在 242 天的孵育过程中，通过衰减全反射傅里叶变换红外光谱（ATR-FTIR）与观察到的表面化学变化相关联。在四个时间点（35、152、202 和 242 天）对塑料区群落的 16s rRNA 和 ITS2 核糖体区域进行了测序。时间点的选择是由一次严重风暴引起的，该风暴从样本表面去除了生物污垢，并引发了第二次定植期。细菌群落以变形菌门和拟杆菌门为主，具有最大的变异性和多样性。真菌群落主要由子囊菌门组成，受风暴的影响不大。无论是细菌群落还是真菌群落结构都与作为基质的聚合物类型无关，而塑料样本的表面随时间经历了程度不同的风化。这项工作研究了地中海外生生物膜的长期发展，是首次研究初级定植如何影响微生物群落的重新附着和演替，以应对极端天气事件。最后，尽管真菌群落中含有潜在的塑料降解菌，但它也是少数研究真菌群落的研究之一。
