Creatures living on tiny ocean plastic may be cleaning our seas

Creatures living on tiny ocean plastic may be cleaning our seas

2014 / Australian coasts / research

Creatures living on tiny ocean plastic may be cleaning our seas

http://theconversation.com/creatures-living-on-tiny-ocean-plastic-may-be-cleaning-our-seas-27876

18 June 2014

Creatures living on tiny ocean plastic may be cleaning our seas

By Julia Reisser, University of Western Australia; Charitha
Pattiaratchi, University of Western Australia, and Jeremy Shaw,
University of Western Australia

We know that Australia?s waters contain lots of tiny pieces of plastic,
and that these pieces can harm many marine species. But in new research
published today we show that these microplastics are also home to marine
life, some of which could be helping to clean up the oceans.

In earlier research reported on The Conversation we found Australia?s
waters contain around 4,000 plastic pieces per square kilometre.

Since then we?ve been looking at the tiny lifeforms found on tiny
plastic, in the first Australian study of its kind. Our results are
published today in PLOS ONE and data repository Figshare.

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