Biological communities inhabit a piece of rope and pieces of plastic. (J. Leichter/SCRIPPS)

Plastic pollution in open ocean has unexpected effects

UNITED STATES
Wednesday, May 09, 2012, 23:50 (GMT + 9)

A study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has found there has been a 100-fold upsurge in human-produced plastic garbage in the ocean in the last 40 years, which is disrupting habitats in the ecosystem.

In 2009, a team of graduate students led the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition (SEAPLEX) to the North Pacific Ocean Subtropical Gyre aboard the Scripps research vessel New Horizon. The researchers, who ventured 1,000 mi west of California, documented an immense amount of human-generated trash, mostly tiny broken down bits of plastic floating across thousands of miles.

Miriam Goldstein (left) and Mario Aguilera deploy a manta net to sample the sea surface during SEAPLEX’s first sampling station at the North Pacific Ocean Gyre,   (Photo: J. Leichter/Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UC San Diego)

A new study published by a graduate student researcher in the latest issue of the journal Biology Letters reveals that plastic debris in the area popularly known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" has grown by 100 times over in the past 40 years, altering the natural habitat of animals such as the marine insect Halobates sericeus.
 
"When you go out into the North Pacific, what you find can be highly variable. So, to find such a clear pattern and such a large increase was very surprising," graduate student and lead author of the study Miriam Goldstein stated, BBC News reports.

These insects inhabit water surfaces and lay their eggs on flotsam such as seashells, seabird feathers, tar lumps and pumice. Now, sea skaters are using plastic garbage as new surfaces for their eggs, raising the egg densities in the gyre.

This increase, documented for the first time in a marine invertebrate in the open ocean, may affect animals across the marine food web, such as crabs that prey on sea skaters and their eggs.

"This paper shows a dramatic increase in plastic over a relatively short period and the effect it's having on a common North Pacific Gyre invertebrate," said Goldstein, chief scientist of SEAPLEX, a UC Ship Funds-supported voyage. "We're seeing changes in this marine insect that can be directly attributed to the plastic."

Garbage patches.  (Map: NOAA)

The amount of plastic debris will influence the survival of species specifically adapted to life on or around objects floating in the water.

The new study follows a 2011 report by Scripps researchers showing that 9 per cent of the fish collected during SEAPLEX had consumed plastic waste. That study estimated that such fish in the North Pacific Ocean ingest plastic at a rate of roughly 12,000-24,000 tonnes a year.

The new study compared changes in small plastic abundance between 1972-1987 and 1999-2010 through historical samples from various sources. In April, researchers with the Instituto Oceanográfico in Brazil published a report that eggs of Halobates micans, another species of sea skater, appeared on many plastic bits in the South Atlantic off Brazil.

"Plastic only became widespread in late '40s and early '50s, but now everyone uses it and over a 40-year range we've seen a dramatic increase in ocean plastic," said Goldstein. "Historically, we have not been very good at stopping plastic from getting into the ocean so hopefully in the future we can do better."

By Natalia Real
editorial@fis.com
www.fis.com

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