Unraveling the Historical Trajectory and Dynamic Mechanisms of Microplastic Degradation in Sediment Cores over the Last Century.

Authors

Jiatian Huang, Haiwei Li, Yunlong Li, Jun Zhu, Ruikun Sun, Zhengqing Dai, Rijian Mo, Shiqi Jiang, Lei He, Liming Song, Muhammad Usman Amin, Chengyong Li

Published in

Environmental science & technology. Jul 08, 2026. Epub Jul 08, 2026.

Abstract

Microplastics (MPs) in sediments serve as chronographic markers of the Anthropocene, enabling the reconstruction of plastic pollution history and the revelation of natural degradation patterns during sedimentation. However, the associations between temporal span, MP abundance, and their degradation patterns remain poorly understood. This study investigated MP abundance and degradation in mangrove sediment cores (1931-2023) and assessed the contribution rates and dynamic mechanisms of four influencing factor categories: anthropogenic activities, climate/meteorological conditions, sediment physicochemical properties, and biological information. The results showed that the earliest detectable MPs appeared in 1953, with abundance ranging from 16 ± 14.97 to 3056 ± 207.62 items kg^-1. The carbonyl, hydroxyl, assimilation, and yellowness indices exhibited a fluctuating upward trend with increasing depth, with annual variation rates of 0.0163, 0.0187, 0.0175, and 0.5357, respectively; the carbonyl index could effectively estimate sediment age (R² = 0.55). Importantly, microbial communities were identified as the most critical factor affecting MP degradation: community richness (Acidobacteriota and Pseudomonadota) and diversity (Chao1, Shannon, and Simpson indices) contributed the most, and MP degradation indicators were positively correlated with species composition (path coefficient = 0.530). This study provides new insights into the reliability of sedimentary MPs as Anthropocene chronostratigraphic markers and their long-term natural degradation patterns under historical changes.

PMID:
42418269
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 08 Jul 2026.

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