An investigation into the relationship between biofilms and the plastics in the oceans

• Main Author: Soh, Kai Jin
• Other Authors: Scott Rice
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Science::Biological sciences
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148421
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Plastic pollution has long been identified as a pernicious problem in our aquatic ecosystem with wide-ranging impacts. These plastic fragments could serve as a fertile breeding ground for bacterial colonisation and subsequent biofilm formation. Some of these bacteria could be very harmful by causing diseases to coral reefs and propagating antibiotic resistance amongst living organisms. To date, only limited understanding has been achieved between the different types of plastics and their biofilm colonies, particularly plastics that were found in Asia region. This study successfully highlighted the heterogeneity of biofilms found in plastic samples. However, there are no significant differences between plastic samples in terms of their microbial composition based on the colour and polymer ID of the plastic samples. Microbes such as Erythrobacter and Ruegeria were identified as major organisms that were responsible for major branching events that were observed when performing hierarchical clustering of plastic samples. These microbes also had one of the highest average percentage of abundance across plastic samples, making them an important indicator when performing clustering for different plastic samples. Plastic samples also generally displayed similar species abundance curve.