POSEIDOMM · Photochemistry at the Ocean's Surface: Effects and Interactions of Dissolved Organic Matter with Microplastics
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2016-05-01 → 2018-04-30
- EU contribution
- €180,277
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-RI
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Photochemistry at the Ocean's Surface: Effects and Interactions of Dissolved Organic Matter with Microplastics
The Mediterranean Sea is the 6th most polluted sea with plastics, with a comparable concentration to the subtropical oceanic gyres. Microplastics may have a strong impact on marine life and biodiversity, with increased impact on higher trophic levels and eventually on humans. The study of the impact of microplastics on marine systems deals with a plethora of associated effects at local and global scale. There are numerous potential, yet unstudied impacts on fundamental marine ecosystem functions and key processes on which we all depend: do marine microplastics influence climate change? The objective of POSEIDOMM was to study the interaction of photochemical degradation, microplastic pollutants and natural organic matter cycling in the top oceanic layer. The very top layer of the ocean, the sea-surface microlayer, is a specific interface connecting the atmospheric and the marine systems. It accumulates natural and anthropogenic organic material, with concentrations up to 500 times higher than in the water below. We hypothesize that micro plastics accumulated in this interface layer may modify microbial carbon dynamics, modifying gas exchange, and increasing the production of climate altering gases from the ocean. Marine litter, and in general, plastic, stems mostly from land-based sources (GESAMP 1991), being in large part (> 80%) of anthropogenic origin. To tackle the problem at its source, POSEIDOMM also teamed up with the international citizen-science initiative FreshWater Watch of the EarthWatch Institute (Oxford, UK). Citizen-scientists and students seasonally monitor the state of the Arno River tributaries (Italy) for ecological parameters and riverbanks litter through a standardized approach allowing for data comparison to similar citizen-sciences project around the globe. By encouraging bottom-up data acquisition and community science, we believe adding a piece of the puzzle towards behavioral change to address the emerging crisis of marine/freshwater litter and preventing parts of the plastic pollution to reach the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Microplastics represent an increasing threat to aquatic ecosystems, with potential impacts on the cycling of fundamental elements and ecological consequences at all trophic levels. Low-density polyolefins, like polyethylene and polypropylene, are the most common plastics produced and are ubiquitous in marine environments. Floating on the sea-surface, they can have direct and indirect impacts on the sea-surface microlayer (SML), a key interface for biochemical and photochemical processes controlling gas exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere. The SML is an enriched biofilm of organic biological material aggregating and favouring high microbial activity. The effects of an increasing presence of microplastics on the cycling of organic matter in the surface ocean are not well understood, and yet they may have a major impact on this key interface. POSEIDOMM will investigate the influence of microplastics on the photochemical and biological processes in the SML. We will verify the effect of microplastic pollutants on the formation of a surface-active biofilm, the implications for microbial cycles and for the photochemical generation of reactive chemical species and labile organic compounds. The goals of POSEIDOMM are to provide a chemical and biological characterization of the microplastic-biofilm aggregates in the SML, to quantify the photochemical cycling of such aggregates and to identify the implications of this cycling on gas exchange and on the microbial carbon cycle.This will be achieved through a trans-disciplinary approach combining innovative spectroscopic and biological analyses to study the SML in controlled microcosms and in-situ mesocosm studies. Through a close cooperation with leading European partners, POSEIDOMM will close major gaps in our understanding of the interaction of micropollutants with marine biological processes and atmospheric gas exchange.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI SIENA · SienaCoordinatorItaly
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union