Plastisphere and Soil Biodiversity
摘要
Discarded plastics are released into the environment via various pathways, many of which end up in the soil ecosystem. Soil acting as a natural sink, accumulate plastic wastes originating from different anthropogenic and natural activities. The larger plastics, under biotic and abiotic conditions undergo degradation and fragmentation to yield smaller plastic particles down to micro- and nano-particle sizes with different characteristics. The soil environment as a part of the terrestrial ecosystem, is the key carrier of microplastics (MP), with an estimated MP content higher than that of the oceans. These fragments present rigid scaffold to which microorganisms and biomolecules can adsorb, thereby forming an important habitat of microbial community, otherwise called the ‘plastisphere’. Soil plastisphere habours higher and diverse bacterial population compared to the surrounding soil, thereby making it a hotspot of microbial diversity. The microbiome represents the combined genetic material or community of microorganisms occurring in a particular environment that is on the surface of plastics. This chapter focuses on the soil plastisphere biodiversity by providing useful information on the sources and types of soil plastics and particulates, soil plastisphere biotic components and microbial communities, interactions between soil microorganisms and plastics and ecosystem implication, functional and enzymatic composition, microplastic-associated biofilm implication in antimicrobial resistance of the soil plastisphere.