Project description
Understanding the impact of microplastics on aquatic microbes
For better or worse, plastics have become omnipresent in our lives. Whether carried by the wind and rain or resulting from improper industrial management, millions of tons of land-based debris and resulting microplastics are finding their way into marine and freshwater environments each year, threatening our aquatic ecosystems. While much of the focus has been on larger animals and plants, the impact of microplastics on microbial ecosystems is equally important. Microplastics impact microbial life and the services microbes provide as microorganisms play a role in the degradation of debris. The EU-funded BIOMIMIC project is developing a mechanistic description of microbe–microplastic encounters. It will elucidate the behavioural, physiological and biomolecular responses of representative bacteria and algae to microplastics to help us better address this pressing global challenge.
Objective
Aquatic microbes - both marine and freshwater - drive global biogeochemical cycles. However, owing to the influx of microplastics (MPs) in their natural ecosystems, microbes now face a daunting task of holding such cycles in balance. From passive encounters with suspended particles to active interactions among species, microbes tackle a myriad of environmental signals along the water depths. Crucially, a steady inflow of MPs into aquatic ecosystems has led to reduced species fitness, altered feeding dynamics, and ultimately, ecosystem restructuring. Due to their abundance, durability, and an easy mobility across trophic levels, MPs have been implicated in perturbing diverse aquatic settings. Despite the growing evidence of potentially deleterious ramifications, we still lack a mechanistic understanding of the microbe-MP interactions. BIOMIMIC will zoom into the microscale biophysics mediating the microbe-MP interactions, and develop a mechano-genetic framework to assess the emergent physiological consequences. By combining microfluidics, quantitative imaging, and molecular techniques, I will experimentally simulate, analyse and quantify the impact of MPs on aquatic microbes. To capture ecologically relevant settings, a representative group of bacteria and algal populations will be exposed to MPs with characteristic physico-chemical makeup, over a range of concentrations, and under different hydrodynamic regimes. Specifically, I will uncover MP-induced microbial response: behaviour, physiology, and bio-molecular, and concomitantly, the modification of MP-attributes due to microbial interactions. By cataloging the species-MP encounters in realistic settings, BIOMIMIC will unravel fundamental biophysical principles of microbial response to MPs. Through it's innovative approach, BIOMIMIC, for the first time, will offer a unique framework linking behaviour, physiology and bio-molecular response to MPs, paving the way for potential remediation of this global challenge.
Fields of science
Not validated
Not validated
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesclassical mechanicsfluid mechanicsmicrofluidics
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesenvironmental sciencespollution
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental scienceshydrologylimnology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiophysics
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
4365 ESCH-SUR-ALZETTE
Luxembourg