Land Use Rather than Microplastic Type Determines the Diversity and Structure of Plastisphere Bacterial Communities

Yangyang Wang, Zixuan Zhang, Shuang Zhang, Wanlin Zhuang, Zhaoji Shi, Ziqiang Liu, Hui Wei and Jiaen Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Yangyang Wang: Guangdong Engineering Technology Research Centre of Modern Eco-Agriculture and Circular Agriculture, Key Laboratory of Agro-Environment in the Tropics, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Zixuan Zhang: Guangdong Engineering Technology Research Centre of Modern Eco-Agriculture and Circular Agriculture, Key Laboratory of Agro-Environment in the Tropics, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Shuang Zhang: Guangdong Engineering Technology Research Centre of Modern Eco-Agriculture and Circular Agriculture, Key Laboratory of Agro-Environment in the Tropics, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Wanlin Zhuang: Guangdong Engineering Technology Research Centre of Modern Eco-Agriculture and Circular Agriculture, Key Laboratory of Agro-Environment in the Tropics, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Zhaoji Shi: Guangdong Engineering Technology Research Centre of Modern Eco-Agriculture and Circular Agriculture, Key Laboratory of Agro-Environment in the Tropics, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Ziqiang Liu: Guangdong Engineering Technology Research Centre of Modern Eco-Agriculture and Circular Agriculture, Key Laboratory of Agro-Environment in the Tropics, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Hui Wei: Guangdong Engineering Technology Research Centre of Modern Eco-Agriculture and Circular Agriculture, Key Laboratory of Agro-Environment in the Tropics, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Jiaen Zhang: Guangdong Engineering Technology Research Centre of Modern Eco-Agriculture and Circular Agriculture, Key Laboratory of Agro-Environment in the Tropics, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China

Agriculture, 2025, vol. 15, issue 7, 1-22

Abstract: Microplastic (MP) pollution has raised global concerns, and biodegradable plastics have been recommended to replace conventional ones. The “plastisphere” has been considered a hotspot for the interactions among organisms and environments, but the differences in the properties of soil microbial communities in the plastisphere of conventional and biodegradable MPs remain unclear. This in situ experiment was conducted to compare the diversity and structure of the bacterial community in the plastisphere of conventional MPs (polyethylene [PE]) and biodegradable MPs (polylactic acid [PLA]) in vegetable fields, orchards, paddy fields, and woodlands. It was discovered that the bacterial α-diversity within the plastisphere was significantly lower than that in the soil across all land use. Significant differences between plastic types were only found in the vegetable field. Regarding the community composition, the relative abundances of Actinobacteriota (43.2%) and Proteobacteria (70.9%) in the plastisphere were found to exceed those in the soil, while the relative abundances of Acidobacteriota (45.5%) and Chloroflexi (27.8%) in the soil were significantly higher. The complexity of the microbial network within the plastisphere was lower than that of the soil. Compared with the soil, the proportion of dispersal limitation in the PLA plastisphere significantly decreased, with the greatest reduction observed in the vegetable field treatment, where it dropped from 57.72% to 3.81%. These findings indicate that different land use types have a greater impact on bacterial community diversity and structure than plastics themselves, and that biodegradable MPs may pose a greater challenge to the ecological function and health of soil ecosystems than conventional MPs.

Keywords: conventional microplastics; biodegradable microplastics; plastic degradation; soil ecosystems; global change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/7/778/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/7/778/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:15:y:2025:i:7:p:778-:d:1627637

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().