Southern Ocean Microplastic Flux: Ecosystem and Carbon Impacts

塑料污染已经成为一个全球性的环境问题，甚至波及到地球上最原始、最偏远的荒野，比如南大洋。该区域在全球海洋环流中发挥着重要作用，为我们的星球提供了基本的生态系统服务，占全球大气碳吸收量的40%。由于能够很好地适应极端但稳定的环境条件，与低纬度地区的物种相比，南极物种被认为更容易受到环境扰动和污染物的影响。因此，塑料污染对海洋生物构成严重威胁。微塑料（< 5mm）可能会造成更大的环境危害，因为颗粒更容易被摄入，表面积的增加促进了化学和生物的相互作用。然而，微塑料被运送到深海的方式在很大程度上仍然未知。了解微塑料的命运和量化问题的规模是必要的，以尽量减少对这种独特的生物多样性的环境风险和影响。本项目的重点是研究促进南大洋某区域水柱内微塑料垂直通量的主要生物驱动力，以评估微塑料对海洋生态系统和生物地球化学循环的影响。该项目属于CUPIDO项目（https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/cupido/）的框架，旨在量化微塑料污染对海洋吸收和运输海洋沉积物中大气碳的能力的影响。

Plastic pollution has become a global environmental issue, reaching even the most pristine and remote wildernesses of our planet, such as the Southern Ocean (SO). This region plays a major role in global oceanic circulation and provides fundamental ecosystem services to our planet, being responsible for 40% of the global atmospheric carbon uptake. Being well adapted to extreme but stable environmental conditions,Antarctic species are considered more vulnerable to environmental perturbations and pollutants, compared to species from lower latitudes. Thus, plastic pollution poses a serious threat to SO marine biota. Microplastics (< 5mm) will likely pose a greater environmental hazard as particles become more available for ingestion, with an increase in surface area facilitating chemical and biological interactions. However, the ways in which microplastics are transported to the deep ocean are still largely unknown. Understanding the fate of microplastic and quantifying the scale of the problem are necessary in order to minimize the environmental risks to and impacts on this unique biodiversity. The focus of this project is to investigate the main biological driver promoting the vertical fluxes of microplastics within the water column in a region of the Southern Ocean, to assess the influence of microplastic on marine ecosystem and biogeochemical cycle. The project is in the frame of CUPIDO project(https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/cupido/) that aims to quantify the impact of microplastic pollution on the ability of the ocean to uptake and transport atmospheric carbon in the oceanic sediment.