SGER Collaborative Research: Exploring a Long-term Record of Plastic Pollution in the North Atlantic

塑料已成为海洋中的主要污染物。塑料的耐用性表现在其在海洋环境中的寿命，根据其物理和化学形式，可能从一年到几十年不等。它的浮力也使它能够被风和水流运送到很远的地方，经常聚集在会聚区。这些特性和过程导致塑料成为海洋垃圾的最主要形式，占海洋垃圾总量的60%至80%。值得注意的是，其丰度和分布的海洋学趋势在时间或空间上都没有受到很好的限制。然而，这一信息对于编制记录是必要的，以便能够将当前和未来的趋势置于长期可变性的背景下，并确定当前和未来控制措施的成功。在探索性研究小额赠款（SGER）的资助下，伍兹霍尔海洋研究所和海洋教育协会（SEA）的研究人员将探索SEA在北大西洋进行的塑料采样记录。SEA是一个教育机构，致力于研究海洋环境及其与地球和人类事务的关系。在过去的24年里，SEA与包括本科生在内的科学工作人员一起进行了数百次浮游生物网拖曳和定量塑料以及浮游动物。这一几乎未被开发的记录可以为海洋中塑料的分布和行为提供宝贵的见解。研究小组-一名环境化学家和一名物理海洋学家-将综合这些数据，并将结果置于海洋学背景下。他们希望通过利用广泛的塑料数据和辅助海洋学数据，利用严格的统计分析来实现后者。他们预计，他们的发现将作为SEA在北太平洋收集的较短塑料记录的模型。最后，他们将利用这些数据来考虑塑料可能驱动或调节的其他化学海洋学过程，例如从海洋表面出口到沉积物中，天然有机物的吸附以及对颗粒有机物测量和循环的影响。更广泛的影响：这一努力将与两个相邻的海洋机构一起进行合作，尽管它们距离很近，但这种合作并不经常发生。大约20名本科生将参与该项目的过程（7次巡航中每次巡航约3名学生）。这些SEA学生将成为一个积极的研究项目的一部分，该项目有望产生对海洋环境的重要了解和对海洋污染研究的兴奋。

Plastics have emerged as a major contaminants in the ocean. The durability of plastic is manifested by a lifetime in the marine environment that may range from a year to decades, depending on its physical and chemical form. Its buoyancy also allows it to be transported great distances by winds and currents, often pooling in convergent zones. These properties and processes have lead plastic to become the most predominant form of marine litter, varying between 60 and 80% of total marine debris. Remarkably, oceanographic trends in its abundance and distribution are not well constrained either temporally or spatially. Yet, this information is necessary for developing records so that current and future trends can be placed in the context of long-term variability and to determine the success of current and future control measures. With funding from this Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER), researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Sea Education Association (SEA) will explore a record of plastic sampling performed by SEA in the North Atlantic. SEA is an educational institution dedicated to the study of the ocean environment and its relationship to the Earth and to human affairs. For the past 24 years, SEA with a scientific crew including undergraduates has performed hundreds of neuston net tows and quantified plastics as well as zooplankton. This record, which has been virtually untapped, could provide invaluable insight into the distribution and behavior of plastics in the ocean. The research team -- an environmental chemist and a physical oceanographer -- will synthesize these data and place the results in an oceanographic context. They expect to achieve the latter by taking advantage of the extensive data for plastics and ancillary oceanographic data using rigorous statistical analysis. They anticipate that their findings will serve as a model for a shorter record of plastics in the North Pacific that SEA has collected. Finally, they will use these data to consider other chemical oceanographic processes that plastic may either drive or modulate, such as export from the surface ocean into sediments, sorption of natural organic matter, and the impacts on particulate organic matter measurements and cycling. Broader Impacts: This effort will join two neighboring marine institutions in a collaborative effort that has not often occurred despite their proximity. Approximately 20 undergraduates will be involved over the course of this project (~3 students per cruise over 7 cruises). These SEA students will become part of an active research project that can be expected to yield significant understanding of the marine environment and excitement about marine pollution research.