Microbe Colonies Thrive on Ocean Plastic Debris

Sea Education Association (SEA) sailing research ship Corwith Cramer under sail. (Credit: E. Zettler, SEA Education Association)

SEA Semester Chief Mate Rocky Hadler tows a net aboard the Crowith Cramer. (Credit: E. Zettler, SEA Education Association)

SEA Semester students Allison Adams and Annie Scofield retrieve nets with plastic and plankton in them. (Credit: E. Zettler, SEA Education Association)

Section of plastic filament net pulled aboard from the open ocean. (Credit: G. Boyd, SEA Education Association)

Plastic marine debris pieces picked from net contents. (Credit: E. Zettler, SEA Education Association)

Students and scientists work in the shipboard laboratory. (Credit: E. Zettler, SEA Education Association)

SEA student Allison Adams sorts plastic under a microscope. (Credit: E. Zettler, SEA Education Association)

An experiment shows biofilm of micro-organisms that develop after only a couple of weeks in the open ocean. (Credit: Lily Patterson & Helena Oldenbourg)

A piece of trash that got away hosts variety of single-celled organisms in the Sargasso Sea. (Credit: E. Zettler, SEA Education Association)

Scientists suspect that the pit forming bacteria may play a role in degrading plastics. (Credit: E. Zettler, SEA Education Association)

Pit-forming bacteria on pieces of weathered pieces of plastic retrieved from the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic. (Credit: E. Zettler, SEA Education Association)