Unraveling the coastal marine plastisphere archaeome

Abstract Plastic pollution has created an expanding anthropogenic microbial niche, the plastisphere, raising questions about microbial ecology and associated impacts. Archaea, the third domain of life with fundamental ecological and evolutionary significance, remain poorly understood in this habitat. Here, using paired plastic debris and bulk-water samples from coastal marine ecosystems, key archaeal habitats increasingly threatened by plastic pollution, we characterize the plastisphere archaeome through archaeal amplicon sequencing and metagenomics. We show that the archaeome is significantly reshaped in the plastisphere, exhibiting higher taxonomic diversity, greater community heterogeneity, and selective enrichment of Euryarchaeota and Crenarchaeota. Archaeal genes involved in methane, nitrogen, and sulfur cycling are enriched in the plastisphere. Taxonomic and functional divergence between the plastisphere and bulk water increases with anthropogenic chemical stress. These findings suggest that plastic pollution could alter marine archaeal diversity, biogeography, and biogeochemical potential, extending understanding of plastisphere impacts to the archaeal domain.

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Publication Details

Journal
Nature Communications
Published
2026-08-14
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76782-z
Primary Topic
Microplastics and Plastic Pollution
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Unraveling the coastal marine plastisphere archaeome

Jian Liu, Zhichao Zhou, Ling Jin, Yuen‐Wa Ho et al.
Nature Communications
Microplastics and Plastic Pollution
article

Unraveling the coastal marine plastisphere archaeome

Jian Liu, Zhichao Zhou, Ling Jin, Yuen‐Wa Ho, Tanveer M. Adyel, James Kar‐Hei Fang, Changchao Li, Matthias C. Rillig, Michael S. Bank, Jie Wang, Xiaohua Zhang, Xi Pan, Albert Shing King Zhou, Yanjie Zhu, Yijing Wang, Anqi Xiong, Tian Chen
article en

Abstract

Abstract Plastic pollution has created an expanding anthropogenic microbial niche, the plastisphere, raising questions about microbial ecology and associated impacts. Archaea, the third domain of life with fundamental ecological and evolutionary significance, remain poorly understood in this habitat. Here, using paired plastic debris and bulk-water samples from coastal marine ecosystems, key archaeal habitats increasingly threatened by plastic pollution, we characterize the plastisphere archaeome through archaeal amplicon sequencing and metagenomics. We show that the archaeome is significantly reshaped in the plastisphere, exhibiting higher taxonomic diversity, greater community heterogeneity, and selective enrichment of Euryarchaeota and Crenarchaeota. Archaeal genes involved in methane, nitrogen, and sulfur cycling are enriched in the plastisphere. Taxonomic and functional divergence between the plastisphere and bulk water increases with anthropogenic chemical stress. These findings suggest that plastic pollution could alter marine archaeal diversity, biogeography, and biogeochemical potential, extending understanding of plastisphere impacts to the archaeal domain.

Nature Communications
Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK), Shandong University (CN), City University of Hong Kong (HK), Shenzhen University (CN), University of Massachusetts Amherst (US), Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (NO), China Agricultural University (CN), Concord University (US), Freie Universität Berlin (DE), RMIT University (AU)
Life below water
Openalex Percentile: Top 19%
Microplastics and Plastic Pollution
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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