@article {35115,
	title = {Metagenomics reveals the influence of small microplastics on microbial communities in coastal sediments},
	journal = {Science of The Total EnvironmentScience of The Total Environment},
	volume = {914},
	year = {2024},
	month = {2024/03/01/},
	pages = {169982},
	abstract = {The ecological impact of microplastics (MPs) in coastal environments has been widely studied. However, the influence of small microplastics in the actual environment is often overlooked due to measurement challenges. In this study, Hangzhou Bay (HZB), China, was selected as our study area. High-throughput metagenomic sequencing and micro-Raman spectrometry were employed to analyze the microbial communities and microplastics of coastal sediment samples, respectively. We aimed to explore the ecological impact of MPs with small sizes (<= 100~μm) in real coastal sediment environments. Our results revealed that as microplastic size decreased, the environmental behavior of MPs underwent alterations. In the coastal sediments, no significant correlations were observed between the detected MPs and the whole microbial communities, but small MPs posed potential hazards to eukaryotic communities. Moreover, these small MPs were more prone to microbial degradation and significantly affected carbon metabolism in the habitat. This study is the first to reveal the comprehensive impact of small MPs on microbial communities in a real coastal sediment environment.},
	keywords = {Carbon metabolism, Coastal sediment, Eukaryote, Metagenomics, Microplastics},
	isbn = {0048-9697},
	url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969724001165?via\%3Dihub},
	author = {Yuhan Zheng and Su, Zhiguo and Liu, Dantong and Huang, Bei and Mu, Qinglin and Li, Yunong and Wen, Donghui}
}
