Microbes and microplastics: Community shifts along an urban coastal contaminant gradient.

Plastic substrates introduced to the environment during the Anthropocene have introduced new pathways for microbial selection and dispersal. Some plastic-colonising microorganisms have adapted phenotypes for plastic degradation (selection), while the spatial transport (dispersal) potential of plastic colonisers remains controlled by polymer-specific density, hydrography and currents. Plastic-degrading enzyme abundances have recently been correlated with concentrations of plastic debris in open ocean environments, making it critical to better understand colonisation of hydrocarbon degraders with plastic degradation potential in urbanised watersheds where plastic pollution often originates.

Introducing a "core steel microbiome" and community functional analysis associated with microbially influenced corrosion.

Microorganisms attached to aquatic steel structures play key roles in nutrient cycling and structural degradation processes. Corrosion-causing microbes are often the focus of studies involving microbially influenced corrosion, yet the roles of remaining community members remain unclear. This study characterizes the composition and functional potential of a 'core steel microbiome' across stainless steel types (304 and 316) and historic shipwreck steel along salinity gradients in North Carolina estuaries.

A Shallow Water Ferrous-Hulled Shipwreck Reveals a Distinct Microbial Community.

Shipwrecks act as artificial reefs and provide a solid surface in aquatic systems for many different forms of life to attach to, especially microbial communities, making them a hotspot of biogeochemical cycling. Depending on the microbial community and surrounding environment, they may either contribute to the wreck's preservation or deterioration. Even within a single wreck, preservation and deterioration processes may vary, suggesting that the microbial community may also vary.

Environmental Evidence for and Genomic Insight into the Preference of Iron-Oxidizing Bacteria for More-Corrosion-Resistant Stainless Steel at Higher Salinities.

Iron-oxidizing bacteria (FeOB) are some of the initial colonizing organisms during microbially influenced corrosion of steel infrastructure. To better understand the abiotic conditions under which FeOB colonize steel, an environmental study was conducted to determine the effects of salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen levels, and steel type on FeOB colonization. Stainless steel (304 and 316 [i.

A simple separation method for downstream biochemical analysis of aquatic microbes.

In order to study the chemical composition of aquatic microbes it is necessary to obtain completely separated fractions of subpopulations. Size separation by filtration is usually unsuccessful because the smaller group of organisms contaminates the larger fractions due to being trapped on filter surfaces of nominally much larger pore sizes. Here we demonstrate that a simple sucrose density separation method allowed us to separate microorganisms of even subtle size differences and to determine their bulk biochemical composition (proteins, polysaccharides+nucleic acids, and lipids).