The garbage patch off the Pacific coast of the United States is so large that it’s become its own thriving ecosystem.
A team of researchers has discovered that coastal species, in addition to ocean animals, have colonized the giant floating pile of trash – and that those species are surviving and reproducing in the garbage patch. The team published their findings this week in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
The ‘eastern patch’ area of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch sits west of California, and southwest of the Oregon coast.
The idea of species using ocean debris has long been known to scientists, according to the report.
The team writes that “[r]afting, or the association of organisms with floating debris, has been an inferred mode of marine species dispersal since the nineteenth century.”
The garbage patch, though, is comprised largely of plastic waste, which decomposes at a much slower rate than organic debris. This means that plastic trash in the ocean may be creating an entirely new ecosystem.
Linsey Haram, of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, who led the study, told CNN that the coastal and ocean species are interacting on the plastics in ways never seen before.
“On two thirds of the debris, we found both communities together … competing for space, but very likely interacting in other ways,” Haram told CNN.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has this to say about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch:
“‘Patch’ is a misleading nickname, causing many to believe that these are islands of trash. Instead, the debris is spread across the surface of the water and from the surface all the way to the ocean floor. The debris ranges in size, from large abandoned fishing nets to tiny microplastics, which are plastic pieces smaller than 5mm in size. This makes it possible to sail through some areas of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and see very little to no debris.”
While the environmental impact of garbage patches like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is still being studied, the research team found that their “results demonstrate that the oceanic environment and floating plastic habitat are clearly hospitable to coastal species.”
Life, quipped Gizmodo this week, finds a way.
The effect of these floating colonies on the ecosystems they eventually encounter is an unknown, however.
“Our study underscores the large knowledge gap and still limited understanding of rapidly changing open ocean ecosystems,” one of the study’s authors, Gregory Ruiz, said in a press release. “This highlights the need for dramatic enhancement of the high-seas observing systems, including biological, physical and marine debris measurements.”
