Project description
Uncovering the ocean’s hidden nanoplastic cycle
Nanoplastics are so tiny (just one micrometre in length) that they have managed to sneak into the world’s oceans. Their minuscule size lets them move from the surface waters down to the deep sea, where they can enter food webs and transform ocean communities. With this in mind, the ERC-funded NanoMare project aims to detect nanoplastic pollution. Specifically, it will use advanced mass spectrometry and isotope tracing to find where nanoplastic pollution is prevalent. By mapping where these particles accumulate and how they interact with ocean life, NanoMare aims to reveal the hidden cycle of plastic at the smallest scale and its impact on Earth’s largest ecosystem.
Objective
Nanoplastics (plastic litter fragments <1µm) were only recently discovered in the marine realm. Due to their colloidal nature, nanoplastics may be dispersed throughout the ocean, potentially affecting all marine life. However, their minuscule size has made it virtually impossible to measure their distribution or determine if microbes can degrade nanoplastics, thus influencing their fate in the ocean. Innovative approaches developed by my team have now made this possible for the first time. Using an ultrasensitive mass spectrometry method, our preliminary results revealed substantial concentrations of various nanoplastic types in both surface waters and the deep sea, suggesting that nanoplastics could constitute an important part of the ocean’s plastic budget. Simultaneously, results from a novel stable isotope assay uncovered the previously unknown ability of marine microbes to degrade nanoplastics, indicating that microbes play a crucial role in determining the fate of these particles in the ocean. However, marine microbes and the ecosystem services they support could also be negatively impacted by nanoplastics. Building on my team’s innovative approaches, we will conduct in situ experiments across surface and deep sea environments, complemented by investigations under laboratory conditions. Through the NanoMare project, we will be the first to provide fundamentally new insights into nanoplastic degradation kinetics, nanoplastic-degrading microbes (including degradation pathways and genes), impacts of nanoplastics on the ocean’s microbiome, and the global prevalence and distribution of nanoplastics and their degradation products in the sea. The NanoMare project will profoundly enhance our understanding of ocean microbe-nanoplastic interactions and nanoplastic inventories, with substantial implications for marine microbiology and other ocean science disciplines. Beyond the ocean, the results will also be important for the fields of hydrology and atmospheric physics.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences hydrology
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology ecosystems
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-ADG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
3526 KV Utrecht
Netherlands
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