Microplastics as an emerging threat to terrestrial ecosystems.

ABSTRACT: Microplastics (plastics <5 mm, including nanoplastics which are <0.1 μm) originate from the fragmentation of large plastic litter or from direct environmental emission. Their potential impacts in terrestrial ecosystems remain largely unexplored despite numerous reported effects on marine organisms. Most plastics arriving in the oceans were produced, used, and often disposed on land. Hence, it is within terrestrial systems that microplastics might first interact with biota eliciting ecologically relevant impacts. This article introduces the pervasive microplastic contamination as a potential agent of global change in terrestrial systems, highlights the physical and chemical nature of the respective observed effects, and discusses the broad toxicity of nanoplastics derived from plastic break

SUBMITTER: de Souza Machado AA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5834940 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature