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Environment: posidonia, a marine plant capable of cleaning plastic

2021-02-08T14:31:13.300Z


Spanish researchers have discovered the amazing cleaning power of a marine plant, posidonia, present in the Mediterranean and capable of


While waiting for the launch of boats capable of picking up plastics from the surface of the oceans, as the “Manta” of the navigator Yvan Bourgnon could do, the marine ecosystem proves that it can also, sometimes, draw on its natural resources to defend.

This has been discovered by a team of Spanish researchers whose work has just been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Everything takes place in the seabed, a few meters from the shores and beaches of the Mediterranean between 0.5 and 40 meters deep, where an endemic plant, Posidonia grows.

Conducted by Anna Sànchez-Vidal, geobiochemist at the Faculty of Earth Sciences at the University of Barcelona (Spain), the study sheds light on the capacity of the herbaria of this underwater plant with long tapered leaves, which the we often take for an algae, to capture the plastic microparticles that litter the seabed or stagnate at mid-depth, then to expel them on the beaches where they are deposited.

50% of posidonia fiber balls enclose plastics

The process, described for the first time in a scientific way, is as simple as it is ingenious since it is based on the natural life cycle of Posidonia.

When its leaves fall each autumn, they slowly disintegrate, releasing fibers which slowly intertwine until they form vegetable balls which trap the plastics they encounter.

These agglomerates, which scientists call "aegagropilae" or "Posidonia Neptune", then slowly take the path of the beaches thanks to the force of the waves and the effect of the tides.

According to calculations by Spanish researchers, 50% of the balls of posidonia fibers enclose plastic materials and the latter retain up to more than 600 fragments for a kilo of plant material.

In 17% of cases, the balls do their job of “cleaning the seas” even more by capturing up to 1470 small pieces of plastic.

For Sophie Richier, marine environment biologist, Center for the Study and Development of Algae in Pleubian (Côtes-d'Armor), this discovery perfectly illustrates the need to preserve the marine flora formed by Posidonia meadows in the Mediterranean as their alter egos. composed of eelgrass on the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean.

“Because of their extreme fragility and sensitivity to pollution, these plants are excellent indicators of the quality of our marine waters,” explains the specialist.

With the results of this research, we now know that they are also essential for their preservation.

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Because even if these marine plants can act as garbage collectors, it is impossible to rely on their sole capacity to clean the oceans.

While each year, between 9 and 12 million tonnes of plastic are dumped in the various seas around the globe, the surface area occupied by Posidonia meadows is in free fall, estimated to have fallen between 13% and 50% since 1960. “It's a real problem because, despite the enormous resources that have been put into trying to reintroduce them into the marine environment, it is proving very difficult to control the replanting of these plants, laments Sophie Richier.

Even though we feel powerless in the face of such an amount of plastic pollution, we must also recognize that, unfortunately, nature does not have the capacity to get rid of it on its own.

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Source: leparis

All life articles on 2021-02-08

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