July 21, 2013 — What is pollution to some is opportunity to others
SINCE 2008 geologists have been mulling over the idea of the Anthropocene, a proposed new epoch in the history of the Earth that would encompass the years in which people have had profound effects on the planet’s workings. Most often, discussion of the Anthropocene revolves around how atmospheric chemistry has changed since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Sometimes the effects of new terrestrial ecosystems, in the form of fields, pastures and plantations, are also considered. To date, though, how the Anthropocene has created new ecosystems in the oceans as well as on land has not been much examined.
Such ecosystems are, nevertheless, emerging—as Tracy Mincer of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in Massachusetts, and Linda Amaral-Zettler of the Marine Biological Laboratory, also in Woods Hole, describe in Environmental Science and Technology. The malign effect of floating plastic debris on seabirds, turtles and other sea creatures is well known. But, as Dr Mincer and Dr Amaral-Zettler have discovered, plastic debris also provides a new habitat for organisms small enough to take advantage of it.
The two researchers collected pieces of plastic from various sites in the North Atlantic. They then examined each using DNA analysis, and also an electron microscope, to see what was living on it. Lots of things were. Altogether, they discovered about 50 species of single-celled plant, animal and bacterial life. Each bit of debris was, in effect, a tiny ecosystem.
Read the full story at The Economist