The editor’s choice for our July issue is ‘The more microplastic types pollute the soil, the stronger the growth suppression of invasive alien and native plants‘, by Yanmei Fu et al.:
The ecological consequences of microplastic pollution for plants remain largely unknown, and the few studies that have tested the effects usually focused on a single type of synthetic polymer and a single species. However, most plants will be exposed to multiple polymer types simultaneously, and the effects may vary among species.
This multispecies study shows for the first time that the negative effects of microplastic pollution on plant growth increase with the number of microplastic types. The authors also found tentative evidence that the negative impacts of microplastic diversity were more pronounced for invasive plants compared to native plants, and that this might be due to differences in the responses of root allocation and thickness.
Read the full article online: The more microplastic types pollute the soil, the stronger the growth suppression of invasive alien and native plants
