At the great pacific Garbage patch, crabs, anemones, and plenty of other creatures have turned floating plastic debris into their homes, say researchers
The study
A team of researchers revealed that dozens of species of coastal invertebrate organisms have been able to survive and reproduce on plastic garbage that's been floating in the Ocean for years at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The scientists said that the findings suggest plastic pollution in the ocean might be enabling the creation of new floating ecosystems of species that are not normally able to survive in the open ocean.
Unlike organic material that decomposes and sinks within months or, at most n few years, plastic debris en float in the oceans for a much longer time. giving creatures the opportunity to survive and reproduce in the open ocean for years, says the new study published in the Nature Ecology & Evolution journal
"It was surprising to see how frequent the coastal species were They were on 70% of the debris that we found" Linsey Haram, a science fellow at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the study's lead author, said.
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