- 건국대학교

	KU Research Team Identify Microbial Behavior Disturbance by Micro-plastic in Soil
	관리자		479		2019.04.17

<img style="float: left; margin-left: 11px; margin-right: 11px;" src="ArticleFile.do?id=11758163" width="161" height="239" />Konkuk University Research team has found that micro plastic in the soil interferes with the movement of soil organisms and disturbs biological behavior.  Plastic products are essential for all human life, but huge amount of plastic wastes are emitted and it causes global concerns. In particular, research has continued to show that micro-plastics* cause toxicity, such as disturbing the metabolism of organisms in rivers and oceans, adversely affecting ecosystems *Micro-plastic: finely split plastic less than 5 mm Professor Youn-joo An (Department of Environmental Health Science), a researcher at Konkuk University, said that micro plastic in soil as well as in water causes behavioral disturbance of organisms. The movement of ‘springtail’, a beneficial insect that decomposes fungi in the soil, was greatly affected. The springtail acts by creating a 'bio-void', a space where they can breathe and move smoothly in the soil. As micro- plastics were introduced into the bio-pores created by the toxic groups, they were filled and the movement of the springtail was noticeably disturbed. Studies have shown that 23-35% of the pollution of polystyrene and polyethylene micro plastic with a size of 29-676 μm in the soil contaminated with 1000 mg kg-1 inhibits movement. In the case of the smaller size of 0.5 μm polystyrene, the inhibition rate was about 33% even at the concentration of 8 mg kg-1.
<img alt="" src="ArticleFile.do?id=11760322" width="673" height="157" /> Fig. 2. (a) Fluorescence images of Lobella sokamensis in 29PMB (plastic microbead)-contaminated soil (1000 mg/kg). The L.sokamensis specimen is trapped by the soil and plastic particles, and the air plastron can be seen in the first monochrome image, marked with a white dotted line. The number of plastic particles surrounding the body of L.sokamensisincreases over time.
Professor Youn-joo An said, "This research has identified the direct impacts of micro-plastics on the species," and added "Because the research on micro-plastics effect on soil species are currently limited, the results of the study will be used as the basis for management of micro-plastics in the soil." The results of this research were carried out by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Information and Communication, the Ministry of Education, the Korea Research Foundation Basic Research Project (Advanced Research), and the Support for the Follow-up Generation Project. It was published online on March 13 in the well-known environmental journal Environment International, as a title of  'Soil microplastics inhibit the movement of springtail species'.

	Fig.2.JPG (28,964)
	Professor Kyun-hwan Kim, Iden...
	Prof. Youn-joo Ahn’s team Con...