Seawater carbonate chemistry and composition of plastic biofilm assemblages

• Main Authors: Harvey, Ben P, Kerfahi, Dorsaf, Jung, YeonGyun, Shin, Jae-Ho, Adams, Jonathan M, Hall-Spencer, Jason M
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2020
• Subjects: Abundance; Alkalinity; total; standard deviation; Alpha diversity; Aragonite saturation state; Bicarbonate ion; Calcite saturation state; Calculated using CO2SYS; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. (2010); Calculated using seacarb after Orr et al. (2018); Carbon; inorganic; dissolved; Carbonate ion; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; CO2 vent; Coast and continental shelf; Community composition and diversity; Entire community; Evenness of species; EXP; Experiment; Field observation; Figure; Fugacity of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); Fugacity of carbon dioxide in seawater; North Pacific; OA-ICC; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre; Operational taxonomic unit; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.925329; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.925329

The increasing quantity of plastic waste in the ocean is providing a growing and more widespread novel habitat for microbes. Plastics have taxonomically distinct microbial communities (termed the 'Plastisphere') and can raft these unique communities over great distances. In order to understand the Plastisphere properly it will be important to work out how major ocean changes (such as warming, acidification and deoxygenation) are shaping microbial communities on waste plastics in marine environments. Here, we show that common plastic drinking bottles rapidly become colonized by novel biofilm-forming bacterial communities, and that ocean acidification greatly influences the composition of plastic biofilm assemblages. We highlight the potential implications of this community shift in a coastal community exposed to enriched CO2 conditions.