Countless invertebrate crustaceans seem to have settled on plastic waste floating in the Pacific Ocean. A new study shows that It was published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.. Known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the garbage patch has long been known to act as a raft for movement or as a short-term home for many organisms. However, the extent to which the increasingly numerous pieces of plastic are now being repurposed as permanent dwellings for molluscs and crustaceans is not well defined.
Lead author Linsey Haram and her colleagues collected a total of 105 pieces of plastic from the Pacific Ocean between November 2018 and January 2019 and found evidence of organisms on nearly 95 percent of the litter analyzed. On 70.5 percent of the wrecks, they found organisms normally found in coastal habitats rather than in the open sea. Of the 484 individuals identified, 80 percent belonged to a coastal species. They outnumbered marine species.
Some animals even reproduce in this strange environment. For example, researchers have recorded insect-like arthropods leaning into clutches and anemones sprouting tiny clones of themselves. This brings with it environmental problems. “If you can reproduce, you can spread,” said Linda Amaral-Zettler, a marine microbiologist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. to Scientific American. “And if you can spread, you can invade foreign habitats.” After all, not only does the plastic necessarily remain in the Pacific Ocean, it also washes up on distant shores, where species can take root as unwanted newzoa.
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