Bacterial Community Profiling of Plastic Litter in the Belgian Part of the North Sea

Abstract

Bacterial colonization of marine plastic litter (MPL) is known for over four decades. Still, only a few studies on the plastic colonization process and its influencing factors are reported. In this study, seafloor MPL was sampled at different locations across the Belgian part of the North Sea to study bacterial community structure using 16S metabarcoding. These marine plastic bacterial communities were compared with those of sediment and seawater, and resin pellets sampled on the beach, to investigate the origin and uniqueness of plastic bacterial communities. Plastics display great variation of bacterial community composition, while each showed significant differences from those of sediment and seawater, indicating that plastics represent a distinct environmental niche. Various environmental factors correlate with the diversity of MPL bacterial composition across plastics. In addition, intrinsic plastic-related factors such as pigment content may contribute to the differences in bacterial colonization. Furthermore, the differential abundance of known primary and secondary colonizers across the various plastics may indicate different stages of bacterial colonization, and may confound comparisons of free-floating plastics. Our studies provide insights in the factors that shape plastic bacterial colonization and shed light on the possible role of plastic as transport vehicle for bacteria through the aquatic environment.

Dangerous hitchhikers? Evidence for potentially pathogenic Vibrio spp. on microplastic particles

“…Within the microbial community on the "Plastisphere" (Zettler et al, 2013) sequences related to the genus Vibrio, a group of bacteria also containing serious pathogens, were found (De Tender et al, 2015;Zettler et al, 2013). However, in both studies a conclusive identification on the species level could not be provided so far due to the usage of next-generation amplicon sequencing and the short read lengths inherent to the methodology.…”

“…Recently the microbial community on marine plastics was targeted in several studies, highlighting the composition and diversity of plastic-attached microorganisms (Carson et al, 2013;Zettler et al, 2013;Oberbeckmann et al, 2014;Reisser et al, 2014;Amaral-Zettler et al, 2015;De Tender et al, 2015). Within the microbial community on the "Plastisphere" (Zettler et al, 2013) sequences related to the genus Vibrio, a group of bacteria also containing serious pathogens, were found (De Tender et al, 2015;Zettler et al, 2013).…”

“…The diverse microbial communities on marine plastic debris differed clearly from the surrounding seawater (Zettler et al, 2013;Oberbeckmann et al, 2014;Amaral-Zettler et al, 2015;De Tender et al, 2015).…”

“…on marine microplastics was published by Zettler et al (2013), who reported the dominance of this genus that constituted nearly 24% of the whole biofilm community on a single polypropylene particle collected from the North Atlantic. In 2015, De Tender et al (2015 reported the detection of members of the family Vibrionaceae on marine plastics from the Belgian North Sea. Recently a review of Keswani et al (2016) highlights the lack of knowledge about the persistence of potentially pathogenic Vibrio spp.…”

“…Furthermore, De Tender et al (2015) recently detected Vibrionaceae on marine plastics from the Belgian North Sea, by using next-generation amplicon sequencing. However, due to short read lengths, a conclusive identification on the species level was not provided so far (De Tender et al, 2015;Zettler et al, 2013).…”