TY - JOUR A1 - Eckert, Ester M. A1 - Di Cesare, Andrea A1 - Kettner, Marie Therese A1 - Arias-Andres, Maria A1 - Fontaneto, Diego A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter A1 - Corno, Gianluca T1 - Microplastics increase impact of treated wastewater on freshwater microbial community JF - Environmental pollution N2 - Plastic pollution is a major global concern with several million microplastic particles entering every day freshwater ecosystems via wastewater discharge. Microplastic particles stimulate biofilm formation (plastisphere) throughout the water column and have the potential to affect microbial community structure if they accumulate in pelagic waters, especially enhancing the proliferation of biohazardous bacteria. To test this scenario, we simulated the inflow of treated wastewater into a temperate lake using a continuous culture system with a gradient of concentration of microplastic particles. We followed the effect of microplastics on the microbial community structure and on the occurrence of integrase 1 (intl), a marker associated with mobile genetic elements known as a proxy for anthropogenic effects on the spread of antimicrobial resistance genes. The abundance of intl increased in the plastisphere with increasing microplastic particle concentration, but not in the water surrounding the microplastic particles. Likewise, the microbial community on microplastic was more similar to the original wastewater community with increasing microplastic concentrations. Our results show that microplastic particles indeed promote persistence of typical indicators of microbial anthropogenic pollution in natural waters, and substantiate that their removal from treated wastewater should be prioritised. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Microplastics KW - Anthropogenic pollution KW - Treated wastewater KW - Freshwater microbial communities KW - Integrase 1 KW - Biofilm Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2017.11.070 SN - 0269-7491 SN - 1873-6424 VL - 234 SP - 495 EP - 502 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Arias-Andres, Maria A1 - Kluemper, Uli A1 - Rojas-Jimenez, Keilor A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter T1 - Microplastic pollution increases gene exchange in aquatic ecosystems JF - Environmental pollution N2 - Pollution by microplastics in aquatic ecosystems is accumulating at an unprecedented scale, emerging as a new surface for biofilm formation and gene exchange. In this study, we determined the permissiveness of aquatic bacteria towards a model antibiotic resistance plasmid, comparing communities that form biofilms on microplastics vs. those that are free-living. We used an exogenous and red-fluorescent E. coli donor strain to introduce the green-fluorescent broad-host-range plasmid pKJKS which encodes for trimethoprim resistance. We demonstrate an increased frequency of plasmid transfer in bacteria associated with microplastics compared to bacteria that are free-living or in natural aggregates. Moreover, comparison of communities grown on polycarbonate filters showed that increased gene exchange occurs in a broad range of phylogenetically-diverse bacteria. Our results indicate horizontal gene transfer in this habitat could distinctly affect the ecology of aquatic microbial communities on a global scale. The spread of antibiotic resistance through microplastics could also have profound consequences for the evolution of aquatic bacteria and poses a neglected hazard for human health. KW - Microplastics KW - Aquatic ecosystems KW - Biofilm KW - Horizontal gene transfer KW - Antibiotic resistance Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2018.02.058 SN - 0269-7491 SN - 1873-6424 VL - 237 SP - 253 EP - 261 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Arias Andrés, María de Jesús A1 - Kettner, Marie Therese A1 - Miki, Takeshi A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter T1 - Microplastics: New substrates for heterotrophic activity contribute to altering organic matter cycles in aquatic ecosystems JF - The science of the total environment : an international journal for scientific research into the environment and its relationship with man N2 - Heterotrophic microbes with the capability to process considerable amounts of organic matter can colonize microplastic particles (MP) in aquatic ecosystems. Weather colonization of microorganisms on MP will alter ecological niche and functioning of microbial communities remains still unanswered. Therefore, we compared the functional diversity of biofilms on microplastics when incubated in three lakes in northeastern Germany differing in trophy and limnological features. For all lakes, we compared heterotrophic activities of MP biofilms with those of microorganisms in the surrounding water by using Biolog (R) EcoPlates and assessed their oxygen consumption in microcosm assays with and without MP. The present study found that the total biofilm biomass was higher in the oligo-mesotrophic and dystrophic lakes than in the eutrophic lake. In all lakes, functional diversity profiles of MP biofilms consistently differed from those in the surrounding water. However, solely in the oligo-mesotrophic lake MP biofilms had a higher functional richness compared to the ambient water. These results demonstrate that the functionality and hence the ecological role of MP-associated microbial communities are context-dependent, i.e. different environments lead to substantial changes in biomass build up and heterotrophic activities of MP biofilms. We propose that MP surfaces act as new niches for aquatic microorganisms and that the constantly increasing MP pollution has the potential to globally impact carbon dynamics of pelagic environments by altering heterotrophic activities. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Microplastics KW - Microorganisms KW - Biofilms KW - Total biomass KW - Heterotrophic activity KW - Functional diversity KW - Multi-functionality index Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.04.199 SN - 0048-9697 SN - 1879-1026 VL - 635 SP - 1152 EP - 1159 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Maass, Stefanie A1 - Daphi, Daniel A1 - Lehmann, Anika A1 - Rillig, Matthias C. T1 - Transport of microplastics by two collembolan species JF - Environmental pollution N2 - Plastics, despite their great benefits, have become a ubiquitous environmental pollutant, with micro-plastic particles having come into focus most recently. Microplastic effects have been intensely studied in aquatic, especially marine systems; however, there is lack of studies focusing on effects on soil and its biota. A basic question is if and how surface-deposited microplastic particles are transported into the soil. We here wished to test if soil microarthropods, using Collembola, can transport these particles over distances of centimeters within days in a highly controlled experimental set-up. We conducted a fully factorial experiment with two collembolan species of differing body size, Folsomia candida and Proisotoma minuta, in combination with urea-formaldehyde particles of two different particle sizes. We observed significant differences between the species concerning the distance the particles were transported. F. candida was able to transport larger particles further and faster than P. minuta. Using video, we observed F candida interacting with urea-formaldehyde particles and polyethylene terephthalate fibers, showing translocation of both material types. Our data clearly show that microplastic particles can be moved and distributed by soil microarthropods. Although we did not observe feeding, it is possible that microarthropods contribute to the accumulation of microplastics in the soil food web. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Microplastics KW - Soil KW - Collembolans KW - Transport KW - Pollution Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2017.03.009 SN - 0269-7491 SN - 1873-6424 VL - 225 SP - 456 EP - 459 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER -