FEatured article (January 2018)
"Impacts of discarded plastic bags on marine assemblages and ecosystem functioning"
Key Points:
- Plastic is an environmental issue because it lasts a long time, and there is a large amount of it being produced and thrown away in the world.
- Plastic bag pollution on specific groups of animals has been well documented (causing suffocation and entanglement in animals such as birds and sea turtles)
- However, the effect of plastic bags on an ecosystem's ability to function has not been well documented
- This study helped outline the effect of plastic bags on ecosystem functioning
- They showed that the presence of plastic bags created conditions with extreme oxygen depletion and reduced primary productivity and organic matter and significantly lower abundances of invertebrates such as clams and worms.
Read the whole article here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25822754
More articles
Check out more peer-reviewed articles on plastic pollution below, and previously featured articles!
- "Determination of migration monomer styrene from GPPS (general purpose polystyrene) and HIPS (high impact polystyrene) cups to hot drinks" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2739648/
- " Effects of micro- and nanoplastics on aquatic ecosystems: Current research trends and perspectives" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28222864