The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a ‘raft of life’ for animals in the open ocean

www.popsci.com...

This is interesting. A whole host of creatures are hitching a ride on the garbage patch and have created their own ecosystem. They've even found those ugly, creepy isopods in there which I was under the impression they were deep sea creatures. Not sure how they would end up there if that's the case. Unintended consequences and all that taken into account, who woulda thunk a bunch of sea creatures would be on and in a floating trash dump? Nature has it's ways of surviving, I guess.

It turns out that coastal plants and animals are hitching a ride on the ever-growing deluge of plastic debris and traveling hundreds of miles from shore to create a new kind of ecosystem in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the largest accumulation of moving plastic debris in the ocean. Researchers identified a host of anemones and other species living within the rubbish, which allows the little creatures to thrive in an otherwise inhospitable environment. The coastal organisms may compete with local species and journey across the sea or be carried to the shore to invade new coastlines, the team wrote on December 2 in Nature Communications.

They found coastal species attached to well over half of the plastic pieces they examined, and many were species that typically thrive in eastern Asia. Among them were anemones, brittle stars, barnacles, shrimp-like crustaceans called isopods, seaweeds, and even coastal fish that were “corralling around or on these floating plastics,” Haram says. “It really creates a little raft of life.”

It's not just the garbage we dump into the oceans, it's also detritus from tsunamis and such that help these creatures travel vast distances and who knows what kinds of invasive species can land pretty much anywhere.

However, the glut of plastic that’s accumulated in the ocean since the mid 20th century has given enterprising critters new and more enduring opportunities to colonize the high seas, Haram and her team wrote. The massive East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 offered a striking example of how this can happen. Hundreds of coastal Japanese marine species rode the debris released by the destruction over 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles) to North America’s west coast and the Hawaiian Islands.

“We’re still finding examples of tsunami debris landing even in 2020 and 2021,” Haram says. “It really opened our eyes to the fact that plastics in particular can be really long-lived as floating debris, which opens up opportunities for some of these rafting species to be out in the open ocean for extended periods of time.”

Much of the waste washed out to sea by the tsunami ended up in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, better known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The gyre, which lies between Hawaii and California, is formed by rotating ocean currents and has, over the past 50 plus years, become a reservoir for plastic litter of all sizes.

unintended consequences I guess

happy for the marine life. home is where you make it.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

Was out walking by the back-river, a couple of months ago.
See multiple duck couples every time, usually mallards.

So there was some floating debris, with a bunch of junk in it, and a solid patch of foam around it.

Flotsam and jetsam, what ?

The ducks were feeding in the gunky foam, sticking their heads in it, and moving from side to side.
Probably sensing edibles with their beaks.

This river was found to be the most polluted river in Canada, somewhere in the 70's or 80's.
Cleaned-up a bit now, but still always lots of junk floating in it.
Personally wouldn't eat the catfish from out of it.

But life always seems to find a way, eh ?

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

Life always finds a way.

it`s like a noahs arc for little sea creatures.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

Fish like structure. You can float a piece of styrofoam in the pacific and bait fish will gather under it. Oil rigs make for great bass habitat. As do old tires and cars. Structure.

spray a pile of super glue on the plastic to make it into a floating island so the birds and animals have a place to rest. If a bunch of muscrats work in unison, they can paddle that plastic island across the ocean.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

what they don't tell you is that these "garbage patches" are a natural part of the environment. sure the plastics and stuff are fairly new. but mixed in with it is all the natural flotsam, that has always been there. along with the wildlife that has always called them home.

just as they don't tell you that even most of the "garbage", just like all the natural stuff, is actually things washed out off of the land in storms, and wasn't all "garbage" to begin with. but instead stuff that was waned and used, until a storm sent it into the ocean. just as there is a plant that grows in rivers here and every storm, or even just rain, washes tons of it out to sea from almost every river.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher


Ummm…cool…so instead of just bringing it back to land and recycling it into gewgaws…we could weave it all together with the discarded fishing nets…and make us a floating country…a veritable plasticity…with multi hued pellet sand beaches…and finally a home for all those fake plants and yard flamingo’s…

I’d move there…





YouSir

i'm not surprised but i am glad.

it's a floating reef.

originally posted by: YouSir
a reply to: TheSpanishArcher


Ummm…cool…so instead of just bringing it back to land and recycling it into gewgaws…we could weave it all together with the discarded fishing nets…and make us a floating country…a veritable plasticity…with multi hued pellet sand beaches…and finally a home for all those fake plants and yard flamingo’s…

I’d move there…

YouSir

but then everyone would go to one side and it would tip over. Like Guam. Ask Hank.

I'm going to throw all my trash in the ocean from now on because fish need rafts to survive.

China will lay Claim to it.

originally posted by: YouSir
a reply to: TheSpanishArcher


Ummm…cool…so instead of just bringing it back to land and recycling it into gewgaws…we could weave it all together with the discarded fishing nets…and make us a floating country…a veritable plasticity…with multi hued pellet sand beaches…and finally a home for all those fake plants and yard flamingo’s…

I’d move there…

YouSir

" 14 million tons of plastic " wonder how many million tons of exhaust fumes per year?

How many million tons of heavy metals...

a reply to: generik

How are human created garbage patches a natural part of the environment?

Wildlife finds a way to use our mistakes but it is nowhere natural. And we often destroy ecosystems and pollute the ocesn with trillions of broken down plastic particles.

I feel like you're making excuses for how human product waste is destroying our environment.

a reply to: infiniteMeow

Alot, doesn't mean we should use far less plastic. It's not just the ocean either.

Plastic bags, straws, and one time use should be slowly banned.

originally posted by: bluesman462002
China will lay Claim to it.

originally posted by: YouSir
a reply to: TheSpanishArcher


Ummm…cool…so instead of just bringing it back to land and recycling it into gewgaws…we could weave it all together with the discarded fishing nets…and make us a floating country…a veritable plasticity…with multi hued pellet sand beaches…and finally a home for all those fake plants and yard flamingo’s…

I’d move there…

YouSir

Ummm…then…maybe they should claim it…cause it probably came from there anywho…and…before i weave a floating country out of it…


Besides…I’d have a non aggression pact with the US…and treaties…and have nuclear subs stationed there…for propulsion…

So China can eff off and go build another sand castle in someone else’s territorial waters…just like now…



YouSir

originally posted by: network dude

originally posted by: YouSir
a reply to: TheSpanishArcher


Ummm…cool…so instead of just bringing it back to land and recycling it into gewgaws…we could weave it all together with the discarded fishing nets…and make us a floating country…a veritable plasticity…with multi hued pellet sand beaches…and finally a home for all those fake plants and yard flamingo’s…

I’d move there…

YouSir

but then everyone would go to one side and it would tip over. Like Guam. Ask Hank.

Ummm…true…

But then we could call it tipsy turvey day…all get drunk…and tipsy…

But the great thin is…it wouldn’t sink…like Guam…and we could easily harvest all those lobstrosities…and really cute fish…

Nothing beats a tipsy turvey day hangover…like a seafood barbie…





YouSir

A few years ago my Great Niece had to do a Science experiment for school. She had three months to do it in. Her Teacher was always stressing the Environment, so I came up with an idea. We took a plastic water bottle and secured it outside of her window. We took a digital camera from her computer and had it take a picture of the bottle twice a day. Most plastics breakdown with exposure to UV light. After about two and a half months the bottle was almost gone. She did a report and we took the pictures and made an video with them. The Teacher thought it was neat and she wanted to try it in the classroom. Towards the end of the year my Niece, her Mother asked me to come to a meeting with her Teacher. The Teacher wanted to know why we faked the experiment? I said that we didn't. She took us over to a window in the corner of the classroom and showed us a plastic bottle. She informed me that the bottle had been there for almost three months and it wasn't degrading, so our experiment was a fraud. I asked if she had the report that was turned in. She did and I suggested that she read it. When she got to the part about UV light, I asked her to stop and pointed out the label on the window that said that it blocked UV light. I told her to put the bottle on the ledge outside the window.

People whine about the amount of plastics that are discarded every year. What do we do with most of the plastic? We bury it in landfills. If UV light breaks it down, why bury it? How many pieces of plastic are tossed out near highways every year? If plastic doesn't break down, we should be up to our waists in discarded bottles. We're not.

The majority of "environmentalism" is nothing more than a political scam. I grew up around Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and I am old enough to remember there being fires on the rivers. I know that there are problems. I also know that I took a Jet-ski out on the Ohio River a few months ago. When you hear about cities banning plastic grocery bags or soda straws, the MSM almost never mentions the politicians saying that the ban is an attack on "Big Oil". They kind of forget that part. Both Bloomberg and DeBlasio have said it. Funny how when "Global Warming" is discussed the wanted restrictions are always against Europe or the US, never against "developing Nations" like China, India and others.

It's a political scam. When I was growing up, we were supposed to be in an Ice Age by now.

originally posted by: CptGreenTea
a reply to: generik

How are human created garbage patches a natural part of the environment?

Wildlife finds a way to use our mistakes but it is nowhere natural. And we often destroy ecosystems and pollute the ocesn with trillions of broken down plastic particles.

I feel like you're making excuses for how human product waste is destroying our environment.

Agree'd, that was f'ing ridiculous..it's natural...WTF