Plastic Pollution in a Changing Marine Environment: Effects and Risk

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Background

Plastic pollution has a ubiquitous presence in the marine environment, impacting ecological health and numerous human activities. Plastics are broadly spread in the ocean and persist owing to their slow rate of degradation under mean abiotic parameters in marine ecosystems. Once in the marine environment, plastics break into smaller particles (micro and nano plastics - MNPs) that impact the biota, leading to a potential cascade of negative effects in ecosystems functioning. The presence of MNPs in marine systems is an environmental issue of concern, but so far has been mostly discussed in isolation from drivers of global change, such as global warming, ocean acidification, or ocean deoxygenation. Plastic particles come in a myriad of shapes, sizes, densities, and weathering states that interact differently with organisms. The impact of realistic mixtures of MNPs in organisms, together with other drivers of global change, is mostly unknown due to its complex nature.

A contextualised vision of the magnitude of the impact of plastic pollution in real-world scenarios is a crucial step to better understand and quantify their risk and effects in marine ecosystems. In the environment, organisms are exposed to MNPs together with a multitude of environmental stressors, such as extreme weather events, global warming, ocean acidification, or ocean deoxygenation, whose combined effects can impact key life stages, affect individuals, and population growth, as well as its viability.

In this Special Issue, we welcome submissions of original research articles on the topic of plastic pollution in a changing marine environment. We are particularly interested in submissions that focus on new results and discuss the combined exposures and effects of MNPs together with global change stressors, from an individual to a population level. Submissions on the discussion and assessment of MNPs risk in a multiple stressors context are also most welcome. We further accept manuscripts on perspective or reviews on this topic. Submissions can address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

- Combined exposure, effects and risk of MNPs with other anthropogenic driven-stressors
- Experimental challenges in the exposure of organisms to MNPs mixtures in a global change context
- Challenges in modeling and predicting combined effects of MNPs and other environmental stressors
- Effects of realistic plastic particles and filaments in real-world scenarios
- Mechanistic insight through experiments or ecological models on the effects of MNPs taking into account other human-induced drivers of global change
- Insights from observational studies on the vulnerability of populations of marine organisms to hot-spots of plastic pollution
- Meta-analysis on the current knowledge of multiple stressors effects in marine organisms

Keywords: Plastic pollution, microplastic, nanoplastic, multiple stressors, global change, ocean acidification, global warming, climate change, ocean deoxygenation, extreme weather events

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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