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Fig. 1 | Environmental Microbiome

Fig. 1

From: Plastisphere community assemblage of aquatic environment: plastic-microbe interaction, role in degradation and characterization technologies

Fig. 1

Conceptual illustration of the diverse plastisphere community, presenting a microbial ecosystem inhabiting plastic debris. Community members include phototrophs, heterotrophs, predators, and pathogens. Hypothesis drawn by a metagenomic study [92] on metabolic potential of plastisphere residents concludes that microorganisms found on plastic debris possess discrete sets of genes compared to those in a surrounding aquatic environment. The metabolic capacity and functional diversity of the plastisphere microbial community are not properly explained. Metagenome rRNA gene reads between 40 and 99% obtained from plastic debris mapped to eukaryotic rRNA, though it is unclear if the represented data is the actual abundances as eukaryotic microbial rRNA genes may consist of a significant number of disparate copies [133]

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