Effects of Microplastics on Ecosystem Functioning of Eukaryotic Marine Microbes

Microplastics enter marine ecosystems through a variety of routes and cause direct and indirect adverse effects, potentially threatening marine ecosystem function, sustainability, health and productivity. It has now been found in marine organisms from plankton to higher organisms. Microplastics enter the food web through direct ingestion of microplastics that look like food or ingestion of natural prey contaminated with microplastics by marine organisms. To further complicate, microplastics in the ocean can bind with other harmful chemicals and stressors before being ingested by marine organisms. Because of the overlapping size range, microplastics are likely to influence the outcomes of interactions among eukaryotic microbes, intervene prey –predator interaction, and overall ecosystem functioning. The microplastic size range is also overlapping with dietary niche size of large number of marine organisms such as copepods, annelids, echinoderms, cnidarians, amphipods, decapods, molluscs, and fish. These guilds of marine food web (microbial loop, mycoloop, planktivores of classical marine food web) are first affected by the microplastic contamination. So the proposed issue aims to advance our understanding of consequences of microplastic contamination on important trophic guilds i.e. microbial loop, mycoloop and planktivores, which constitute the base of the marine food web.

There are large knowledge gaps in marine ecosystems including their ecological impact of microplastics, accumulation, and interactions with marine organisms, especially eukaryotic planktonic species and we are far from understanding the ecological consequences. A more holistic knowledge is needed to better understand the effect of microplastics on the responses of eukaryotic organisms. Therefore, the objectives of this Research Topic are:

1. To produce state of art information on impact of microplastics on ecological functioning of marine microbes.
2. To disseminate the impacts of microplastics on diversity and demography of marine eukaryotic microbes (protists, fungi, and zooplankton).
3. To provide information on implication of microplastics on prey-predator interactions.

This Research Topic calls for original and novel research articles on any of the following theme but are not limited to:

• Effect of microplastics on eco-physiology of various components of microbial loop.
• Effect of microplastics on fungi-plankton interaction.
• Direct and indirect impact of microplastics on prey selection by fish larvae.
• Occurrence of microplastics in relation to land driven effluent discharge.
• Effect of microplastics on functional and numerical response of Zooplankton feeding on autotrophic and heterotrophic protists.
• Effect of microplastics and plastic additives on the demography life history strategy of planktonic communities in marine, estuarine, coastal and riverine ecosystems.