Welcome to the plastisphere, the realm of plastic microbes: ‘It’s a new ecosystem on the planet’

And the instruments in their Dutch laboratory opened the door to the immense variety of life living on the buoy. “They are true hitchhikers of plastic,” Amaral‑Zettler says. For several years now, plastic and the plastisphere have played an increasingly important role on those expeditions. “The plastisphere is a new biome, a new ecosystem on the planet, a new niche to be exploited by life,” Monràs i Riera concludes. Meanwhile, the colonization of plastic, as if it were the conquest of a distant planet, continues its course.