ArticlemSphere2021
Cross-Hemisphere Study Reveals Geographically Ubiquitous, Plastic-Specific Bacteria Emerging from the Rare and Unexplored Biosphere.
Article in mSphere, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 36 citations in OpenAlex.
- Plastic additives enrich diverse bacterial communities which show the hallmarks of plastic degradation.Sustainable microbiology · 2026Article
- Comparative functional profiles of microbial communities on drifting microplastics and volcanic pumice.ISME communications · 2026Article
- A review on microbial-biofilm mediated mechanisms in marine microplastics degradation.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2025Review
- Close encounters on a micro scale: microplastic sorption of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their potential effects on associated biofilm communities.Environmental microbiome · 2025Article
- Unlocking the biotechnological potential of Baltic microorganisms.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Review
- Assessing the Plastisphere from Floating Plastics in the Northwestern Mediterranean Sea, with Emphasis on Viruses.Microorganisms · 2024Article
- The geographical and seasonal effects on the composition of marine microplastic and its microbial communities: The case study of Israel and Portugal.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- A domesticated photoautotrophic microbial community as a biofilm model system for analyzing the influence of plastic surfaces on invertebrate grazers in limnic environments.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Merging Plastics, Microbes, and Enzymes: Highlights from an International Workshop.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2022Review
- Plastisphere community assemblage of aquatic environment: plastic-microbe interaction, role in degradation and characterization technologies.Environmental microbiome · 2022Review
- Vibrio spp and other potential pathogenic bacteria associated to microfibers in the North-Western Mediterranean Sea.PloS one · 2022Article
- A review on marine plastisphere: biodiversity, formation, and role in degradation.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2022Review
- Latitudinal Diversity Gradients (LDGs) and macroalgal microbiomes: A chimera of biotic and abiotic effects?Journal of phycology · 2021Article
- Microplastics in the Environment: Intake through the Food Web, Human Exposure and Toxicological Effects.Toxics · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors at 7 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
While it is now appreciated that the millions of tons of plastic pollution travelling through marine systems carry complex communities of microorganisms, it is still unknown to what extent these biofilm communities are specific to the plastic or selected by the surrounding ecosystem. To address this, we characterized and compared the microbial communities of microplastic particles, nonplastic (natural and wax) particles, and the surrounding waters from three marine ecosystems (the Baltic, Sargasso and Mediterranean seas) using high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing. We found that biofilm communities on microplastic and nonplastic particles were highly similar to one another across this broad geographical range. The similar temperature and salinity profiles of the Sargasso and Mediterranean seas, compared to the Baltic Sea, were reflected in the biofilm communities. We identified plastic-specific operational taxonomic units (OTUs) that were not detected on nonplastic particles or in the surrounding waters. Twenty-six of the plastic-specific OTUs were geographically ubiquitous across all sampled locations. These geographically ubiquitous plastic-specific OTUs were mostly low-abundance members of their biofilm communities and often represented uncultured members of marine ecosystems. These results demonstrate the potential for plastics to be a reservoir of rare and understudied microbes, thus warranting further investigations into the dynamics and role of these microbes in marine ecosystems.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.