Soil microbial community parameters affected by microplastics and other plastic residues

IntroductionThe impact of plastics on terrestrial ecosystems is receiving increasing attention. Although of great importance to soil biogeochemical processes, how plastics influence soil microbes have yet to be systematically studied. The primary objectives of this study are to evaluate whether plastics lead to divergent responses of soil microbial community parameters, and explore the potential driving factors.MethodsWe performed a meta-analysis of 710 paired observations from 48 published articles to quantify the impact of plastic on the diversity, biomass, and functionality of soil microbial communities.Results and discussionThis study indicated that plastics accelerated soil organic carbon loss (effect size = -0.05, p = 0.004) and increased microbial functionality (effect size = 0.04, p = 0.003), but also reduced microbial biomass (effect size = -0.07, p