Southern Ocean Microplastic Flux: Ecosystem and Carbon Impacts

Plastic pollution has become a global environmental issue, reaching even the most pristine and remote wildernesses of our planet, such as the Southern Ocean (SO). This region plays a major role in global oceanic circulation and provides fundamental ecosystem services to our planet, being responsible for 40% of the global atmospheric carbon uptake. Being well adapted to extreme but stable environmental conditions,
Antarctic species are considered more vulnerable to environmental perturbations and pollutants, compared to species from lower latitudes. Thus, plastic pollution poses a serious threat to SO marine biota. Microplastics (< 5mm) will likely pose a greater environmental hazard as particles become more available for ingestion, with an increase in surface area facilitating chemical and biological interactions. However, the ways in which microplastics are transported to the deep ocean are still largely unknown. Understanding the fate of microplastic and quantifying the scale of the problem are necessary in order to minimize the environmental risks to and impacts on this unique biodiversity. The focus of this project is to investigate the main biological driver promoting the vertical fluxes of microplastics within the water column in a region of the Southern Ocean, to assess the influence of microplastic on marine ecosystem and biogeochemical cycle. The project is in the frame of CUPIDO project(https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/cupido/) that aims to quantify the impact of microplastic pollution on the ability of the ocean to uptake and transport atmospheric carbon in the oceanic sediment.