Taurozzi Davide, Cesarini Giulia, Scalici Massimiliano
Department of Sciences, University of Roma Tre, Viale G. Marconi 446, 00146 Rome, Italy.
Department of Sciences, University of Roma Tre, Viale G. Marconi 446, 00146 Rome, Italy; National Research Council - Water Research Institute (CNR-IRSA), Corso Tonolli 50, 28922 Verbania, Italy.
Sci Total Environ. 2024 Feb 20;912:169071. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169071. Epub 2023 Dec 2.
Wetlands are habitats that provide numerous ecosystem services, but are often understudied and threatened by anthropogenic pollution, particularly plastic pollution. Macroplastics are a significant component of plastic litter that have high biological impacts but are often understudied. Previous studies have highlighted negative impacts on biota, but there is a lack of information about the communities of micro and macro organisms that settle on macroplastic litter. In this context, we investigated the colonization patterns and community structures of diatoms and macroinvertebrates on virgin substrates composed of two different plastic polymers, polystyrene and polyethylene terephthalate, located at two different depths in a protected wetland in Central Italy over a period of 10 months. The results show that diatom community is not highly structured by competitive forces and aggregation patterns emerges. In contrast, macroinvertebrate community appears to be randomly structured, without the presence of patterns following specific assembly rules. Randomness in macroinvertebrates assemblages could highlight the presence of different niches available for settlement of different taxa. Combined matrix analyses show that diatoms and macroinvertebrates co-occur, and their community assemblages are sometimes structured, while they appeared to be randomly assembled at other times. Whenever non-randomness of diatoms and macroinvertebrates co-occurrences was detected, it suggested aggregation. Moreover, the possible predatory relationship between different macroinvertebrates taxa should be investigated, as it could reveal important scenarios in the establishment of macroinvertebrate structured communities on plastic litter, including taxa that exploit different ecological niches. This could lead to an enrichment of the biological community within areas impacted by plastics.
湿地是提供众多生态系统服务的栖息地，但往往研究不足，且受到人为污染尤其是塑料污染的威胁。大塑料是塑料垃圾的重要组成部分，具有很高的生物影响，但往往研究不足。以往的研究强调了对生物群的负面影响，但缺乏关于附着在大塑料垃圾上的微生物和大型生物群落的信息。在此背景下，我们调查了位于意大利中部一个受保护湿地中两个不同深度、由两种不同塑料聚合物（聚苯乙烯和聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯）组成的原始基质上硅藻和大型无脊椎动物的定殖模式和群落结构，为期10个月。结果表明，硅藻群落并非由竞争力量高度构建，而是出现了聚集模式。相比之下，大型无脊椎动物群落似乎是随机构建的，不存在遵循特定组装规则的模式。大型无脊椎动物组合中的随机性可能突出了不同分类群可用于定居的不同生态位的存在。联合矩阵分析表明，硅藻和大型无脊椎动物同时出现，它们的群落组合有时是有结构的，而在其他时候似乎是随机组装的。每当检测到硅藻和大型无脊椎动物同时出现的非随机性时，就表明存在聚集现象。此外，应研究不同大型无脊椎动物分类群之间可能的捕食关系，因为这可能揭示塑料垃圾上大型无脊椎动物结构化群落建立过程中的重要情况，包括利用不同生态位的分类群。这可能会使受塑料影响地区的生物群落更加丰富。
