Putative degraders of low-density polyethylene-derived compounds are ubiquitous members of plastic associated bacterial communities in the marine environment

Research article It remains unknown whether and to what extent marine prokaryotic communities are capable of degrading plastic in the ocean. To address this knowledge gap, we combined enrichment experiments employing low-density polyethylene (LDPE) as the sole carbon source with a comparison of bact...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental Microbiology
Main Authors: Pinto, María, Polania Zenner, Paula, Langer, T.M. (Teresa M.), Harrison, J. (Jesse), Simon, Meinhard, Varela, M.M. (Marta María), Herndl, G.J. (Gerhard J.)
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Centro Oceanográfico de A Coruña 2020
Subjects:
Plastic debris affecting oceans
Marine microbial communities
LDPE enrichment experiments
Ocean pollution
North Atlantic Ocean
Pacific Ocean
Northern Adriatic Sea
marine environment
plastics
compounds
chemistry
ecology
Pacific
North Atlantic
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10508/12542
https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.15232
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Summary:Research article It remains unknown whether and to what extent marine prokaryotic communities are capable of degrading plastic in the ocean. To address this knowledge gap, we combined enrichment experiments employing low-density polyethylene (LDPE) as the sole carbon source with a comparison of bacterial communities on plastic debris in the Pacific, the North Atlantic and the northern Adriatic Sea. A total of 35 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were enriched in the LDPE-laboratory incubations after 1 year, of which 20 were present with relative abundances > 0.5% in at least one plastic sample collected from the environment. From these, OTUs classified as Cognatiyoonia, Psychrobacter, Roseovarius and Roseobacter were found in the communities of plastics collected at all oceanic sites. Additionally, OTUs classified as Roseobacter, Pseudophaeobacter, Phaeobacter, Marinovum and Cognatiyoonia, also enriched in the LDPE-laboratory incubations, were enriched on LDPE communities compared to the ones associated to glass and polypropylene in in-situ incubations in the northern Adriatic Sea after 1 month of incubation. Some of these enriched OTUs were also related to known alkane and hydrocarbon degraders. Collectively, these results demonstrate that there are prokaryotes capable of surviving with LDPE as the sole carbon source living on plastics in relatively high abundances in different water masses of the global ocean. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austrian Sciences Fund, University of Viena, German Federal Ministry of Education and Science (BacGeoPac project (03G0248A) and IEO (RADPROF project) Versión del editor 5,843

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