ReviewNature reviews. Microbiology2026
The aquatic plastisphere: ecology, pathogen dissemination and antimicrobial resistance.
Review in Nature reviews. Microbiology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 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
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Tackling the global plastic pollution crisis.National science review · 2026Review
- Microplastics and Nanoplastics in Food: Dietary Toxicology Beyond Particle Counts.Comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety · 2026Review
- Unraveling the coastal marine plastisphere archaeome.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Does plastic waste present an infection hazard? Current evidence, surveillance challenges and research priorities.One health outlook · 2026Review
- The 'Lifeboat Hypothesis': Aquatic Microplastics in a Warming World-Climate-Resilient Refugia for Bacterial Pathogens.Global change biology · 2026Article
- From Reactive to Predictive One Health: AI-Enabled Frameworks for Integrated Zoonotic Surveillance and Governance.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The escalating volume of plastic debris in the aquatic environment has created a novel ecological niche for microorganisms. This habitat, known as the plastisphere, hosts ecologically diverse microbial communities, yet its degree of divergence in composition and function from natural substrates remains a key topic of debate. In this Review, we provide a comprehensive overview of the aquatic plastisphere, highlighting its community composition, assembly dynamics and key functional traits, such as degradation pathways and nutrient cycling. We explore how this novel environment acts as a critical hub for the persistence and dissemination of human pathogens and antimicrobial resistance. We discuss how dynamic environmental factors, together with complex inter-kingdom metabolic interactions, can reshape community composition, accelerate the evolution of resistant pathotypes and influence pathogen virulence. We conclude by emphasizing that climate-induced changes in temperature, ultraviolet light radiation, salinity and hydrodynamic patterns are likely to further influence the microbial composition and phenotypic expression of pathogens within the aquatic plastisphere. Finally, we underscore the need for a One Health approach to study the plastisphere and advocate moving the field from descriptive ecology towards a mechanistic, policy-relevant framework to address the growing public health threat amid accelerating plastic pollution and climate-driven shifts.
Indexed as
Identifiers
41927932What 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.