Ecosystem-Service Scaling Techniques to Evaluate the Benefits of Marine Debris Removal.

While knowledge of the ecological impacts of marine debris is continually advancing, methods to evaluate the comparative scale of these impacts are less well developed. In the case of costly environmental restoration in marine and coastal environments, quantifying and comparing the ecological impacts of diverse forms of ecosystem injuries can facilitate a more efficient selection of restoration projects. This article proposes evaluating marine debris removal projects in an ecological service equivalency analysis framework that can be used to compare marine debris removal to other types of environmental restoration. Drawing on existing spatial and temporal data with respect to marine debris impacts on habitats and resources, we demonstrate how resource managers and organizations involved in marine debris removal can quantify the ecological service benefits of a removal project and use it to comparatively select between projects based on present value ecological benefits. This valuation can be useful in natural resource damage assessment restoration selection, and for directing limited funds to marine debris removal projects which produce the greatest gains in ecological services. This ecological scaling framework is applied to a seagrass injury case study to demonstrate its application for scaling marine debris removal as compensatory restoration.

Walking the talk: The responsibility of the scientific community for mitigating conference-generated waste.

An estimated 19-23 million metric tons of global plastic waste reportedly entered aquatic environments in 2016 with mounting evidence that plastic marine debris causes ecological effects across all levels of biological organization in aquatic systems. Scientific conferences generate opportunities for waste through food and beverage services, giveaways, marketing and registration materials, poster and trade exhibits, attendee travel, lodging services, and local transportation. Zero waste measures instituted at the Sixth International Marine Debris Conference resulted in the avoidance of 76,300 single-use items. Zero waste is a process defined by a spectrum of actions ranging from no reduction whatsoever to generation of absolutely no waste. Achieving 100% zero waste is very difficult. Deciding where on the spectrum you wish to land and being comfortable with that target is paramount for event planning. Planning for reduced waste takes time, funding, and determination, but environmentally-themed organizations have a responsibility to lead by example.

Bacterial biofilms colonizing plastics in estuarine waters, with an emphasis on Vibrio spp. and their antibacterial resistance.

Since plastics degrade very slowly, they remain in the environment on much longer timescales than most natural organic substrates and provide a novel habitat for colonization by bacterial communities. The spectrum of relationships between plastics and bacteria, however, is little understood. The first objective of this study was to examine plastics as substrates for communities of Bacteria in estuarine surface waters. We used next-generation sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene to characterize communities from plastics collected in the field, and over the course of two colonization experiments, from biofilms that developed on plastic (low-density polyethylene, high-density polyethylene, polypropylene, polycarbonate, polystyrene) and glass substrates placed in the environment. Both field sampling and colonization experiments were conducted in estuarine tributaries of the lower Chesapeake Bay. As a second objective, we concomitantly analyzed biofilms on plastic substrates to ascertain the presence and abundance of Vibrio spp. bacteria, then isolated three human pathogens, V. cholerae, V. parahaemolyticus, and V. vulnificus, and determined their antibiotic-resistant profiles. In both components of this study, we compared our results with analyses conducted on paired samples of estuarine water. This research adds to a nascent literature that suggests environmental factors govern the development of bacterial communities on plastics, more so than the characteristics of the plastic substrates themselves. In addition, this study is the first to culture three pathogenic vibrios from plastics in estuaries, reinforcing and expanding upon earlier reports of plastic pollution as a habitat for Vibrio species. The antibiotic resistance detected among the isolates, coupled with the longevity of plastics in the aqueous environment, suggests biofilms on plastics have potential to persist and serve as focal points of potential pathogens and horizontal gene transfer.