Supervisors: Franck Lejzerowicz (UiO), Alexander Eiler (UiO)
Collaborators: Guiliana Panieri and Inés Barrenechea (UiT), Odd-Gunnar Wikmark (NORCE-Troms?).
Preferred project period: September 2023 – June 2025
Background
Plastic pollution is a huge problem for our oceans. While microplastics (MPs) are already known to litter every possible marine habitat, from urban waters to the remote Arctic (Bergmann et al. 2022), knowledge about the ecology of microorganisms associated with marine MPs is limited. Since the plastic industry exists, MPs have been circulating with oceanic currents and constantly deposited in Arctic deep-sea sediments (Huserbr?ten et al., 2022) and with it, allochthonous microorganisms. Recent results report high affluence of fiber-shaped MPs to surface and deep Arctic waters, and especially in the eastern Arctic, west of Svalbard (Ross et al. 2021). It is likely that when entering Arctic waters at great depth (Timmermans et al., 2020), the Norway Atlantic Current brings along high loads of MPs that would deposit in the sediment and possibly originate from Norwegian urban areas (Jensen et al. 2022). Such a natural MPs conveyor system offers the opportunity to reconstruct and track the source of MPs and their microbes and functions from the beginning of the plastic area (ca. 1930). Indeed, up to 1000 submillimeter-sized MPs (mainly polyethylene and polypropylene) were retrieved from fine-grained, Greenlandic marine sediment, indicating the plastic-production boom of the 50’s (Parga Martinez et al. 2023).
Project description
This project will combine geosciences, molecular biology, bioinformatics, and modeling to assess microbiome diversity throughout the history of plastic deposition and identify whether changes in microbial compositions reflect environmental change or adaptation to microplastic niches (focus on plastic degradation).
General questions based on which the candidate will develop its own research question include:
- Is there compositional change in the historic sequence of microplastics deposited to the Arctic from industry onset to nowadays?
- Are microplastics composition changes associated with microbial compositional changes?
- Are microbes associated with most ancient microplastics more capable of degrading them?
- What is the relative importance of microplastics and other environmental drivers in determining the ecology and potential interactions of microplastic microbes?
Organization
The candidate will visit the Department of Geosciences (UiT, The Arctic University of Norway, in Troms?) to work with Prof. Guiliana Panieri and Dr. Inés Barrenechea on two deep-sea sediment cores from the high-MP incidence area near Bj?rnoya, and to learn sediment subsampling methods, following procedures relevant to ancient DNA research in order to isolate microplastics and their microbes. These collaborators may offer cruise opportunities depending on the project progress and findings.
Learning outcomes
At UiO, the candidate will learn how to perform microbiome alpha and beta diversity analyses from experimental design and sediment sampling to sequencing data analysis and integration for ecological and differential-abundance modeling. High-quality stratigraphic, paleontological data on sedimentary community and environmental change will be available to interpret microplastic-microbiome changes.
At the end of the Master studies, the candidate will be familiar with theoretical and practical concepts in (microbial) ecology and evolution, and notably for the computational analysis of microbiome data based on Unix and programming (in python or R).
What we offer
We offer an inclusive and stimulating research environment where the student is encouraged to join the research group activities and engage with other students and researchers in the group. The candidate will receive guidance and support from the MarMib network, an international microplastic microbiome RCN project co-led by Dr. Odd-Gunnar Wikmark (NORCE, Troms?) and Prof. Alexander Eiler (UiO), with collaborators in Costa Rica, Germany, Vietnam, South Africa, and Estonia.
If you are interested
Please send a brief description of yourself and of your motivation for this project (max 300 words) to Dr. Franck Lejzerowicz (franckl@uio.no), Prof. Alexander Eiler (alexander.eiler@ibv.uio.no) and Prof. Giuliana Panieri (giuliana.panieri@uit.no). Do not hesitate to contact any of us for more information.
References
Bergmann, M., Collard, F., Fabres, J., Gabrielsen, G.W., Provencher, J.F., Rochman, C.M., van Sebille, E. and Tekman, M.B., 2022. Plastic pollution in the Arctic. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 3(5), pp.323-337.
Huserbr?ten, M.B., Hattermann, T., Broms, C. and Albretsen, J., 2022. Trans-polar drift-pathways of riverine European microplastic. Scientific Reports, 12(1), pp.1-10.
Jensen, S., Gr?svik, B.E., Halsband, C., Halldórsson, H.P., Leslie, H.A., Gunnlaugsdóttir, H., Guls, H.D., Vorkamp, K., Granberg, M.E., Sigur?sson, V. and J?rundsdóttir, H.?., 2022. Understanding microplastic pollution in the Nordic marine environment–knowledge gaps and suggested approaches. Microplastics and Nanoplastics, 2(1), pp.1-19.
Parga Martinez, K. B., Andersen, T. J., da Silva, V., Strand, J., and Posth, N. R.: Greenland in the Anthropocene: an archive of microplastic pollution, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-10534, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-10534, 2023.
Ross, P.S., Chastain, S., Vassilenko, E., Etemadifar, A., Zimmermann, S., Quesnel, S.A., Eert, J., Solomon, E., Patankar, S., Posacka, A.M. and Williams, B., 2021. Pervasive distribution of polyester fibres in the Arctic Ocean is driven by Atlantic inputs. Nature communications, 12(1), p.106.
Timmermans, M.L. and Marshall, J., 2020. Understanding Arctic Ocean circulation: A review of ocean dynamics in a changing climate. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 125(4), p.e2018JC014378.