ArticleMicrobial ecology2019
Fouling Microbial Communities on Plastics Compared with Wood and Steel: Are They Substrate- or Location-Specific?
Article in Microbial ecology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 97 citations in OpenAlex.
- Disrupted Salivary Fungal Community in Patients With Oral Lichen Planus.International dental journal · 2026Article
- Exploring the Microbial Reservoir ofMarine drugs · 2025Article
- Microplastics primarily provide habitats for benthic microalgae in Fujian coastal waters of China.iScience · 2025Article
- Ecological Roles and Shared Microbes Differentiate the Plastisphere from Natural Particle-Associated Microbiomes in Urban Rivers.Environmental science & technology · 2025Article
- Microbial communities associated with plastic fishing nets: diversity, potentially pathogenic and hydrocarbon degrading bacteria.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Distinct microbial communities degrade cellulose diacetate bioplastics in the coastal ocean.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2023Article
- Substrate Specificity of Biofilms Proximate to Historic Shipwrecks.Microorganisms · 2023Article
- Microbial community shift on artificial biological reef structures (ABRs) deployed in the South China Sea.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Plastisphere community assemblage of aquatic environment: plastic-microbe interaction, role in degradation and characterization technologies.Environmental microbiome · 2022Review
- A review on marine plastisphere: biodiversity, formation, and role in degradation.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2022Review
- A multi-OMIC characterisation of biodegradation and microbial community succession within the PET plastisphere.Microbiome · 2021Article
- Comparative Analysis of the Ecological Succession of Microbial Communities on Two Artificial Reef Materials.Microorganisms · 2021Article
- Article
- Microbial Communities on Plastic Polymers in the Mediterranean Sea.Frontiers in microbiology · 2021Article
- Microbial Diversity and Activity During the Biodegradation in Seawater of Various Substitutes to Conventional Plastic Cotton Swab Sticks.Frontiers in microbiology · 2021Article
- New approaches for the characterization of plastic-associated microbial communities and the discovery of plastic-degrading microorganisms and enzymes.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2021Review
- Biogeography rather than substrate type determines bacterial colonization dynamics of marine plastics.PeerJ · 2021Article
- Ecology of the plastisphere.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2020Review
- Microbial Ecotoxicology of Marine Plastic Debris: A Review on Colonization and Biodegradation by the "Plastisphere".Frontiers in microbiology · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Although marine biofouling has been widely studied on different substrates, information on biofouling on plastics in the Arabian Gulf is limited. Substrate- and location-specific effects were investigated by comparing the microbial communities developed on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyethylene (PE) with those on steel and wood, at two locations in the Sea of Oman. Total biomass was lower on PET and PE than on steel and wood. PET had the highest bacterial abundance at both locations, whereas chlorophyll a concentrations did not vary between substrates. MiSeq 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing revealed comparable operational taxonomic unit (OTU) richness on all substrates at one location but lower numbers on PET and PE at the other location. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) showed distinct clusters of the bacterial communities based on substrate (analysis of similarity (ANOSIM), R = 0.45-0.97, p < 0.03) and location (ANOSIM, R = 0.56, p < 0.0001). The bacterial genera Microcystis and Hydrogenophaga and the diatoms Licmophora and Mastogloia were specifically detected on plastics. Desulfovibrio and Pseudomonas spp. exhibited their highest abundance on steel and Corynebacterium spp. on wood. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed fissure formation on PET and PE, indicating physical degradation. The presence of free radicals on PET and carbonyl bonds (C=O) on PE, as revealed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, indicated abiotic degradation while hydroxyl groups and spectral peaks for proteins and polysaccharides on PE indicated biotic degradation. We conclude that fouling microbial communities are not only substrate-specific but also location-specific and microbes developing on plastics could potentially contribute to their degradation in the marine environment.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.