Gorka Bidegain

Ika Paul-Pont

Frontiers in Marine Science

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GENERAL COMMENTARY
published: 06 July 2018
doi: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00237
Frontiers in Marine Science | www.frontiersin.org 1 July 2018 | Volume 5 | Article 237
Edited by:
Julian Blasco,
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas (CSIC), Spain
Reviewed by:
Víctor M. León,
Centro Oceanográfico de Murcia,
Spain
*Correspondence:
Gorka Bidegain
gorka.bidegain@ehu.eus
Specialty section:
This article was submitted to
Marine Pollution,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Marine Science
Received: 05 June 2018
Accepted: 19 June 2018
Published: 06 July 2018
Citation:
Bidegain G and Paul-Pont I (2018)
Commentary: Plastic waste
associated with disease on coral
reefs. Front. Mar. Sci. 5:237.
doi: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00237
Commentary: Plastic waste
associated with disease on coral
reefs
Gorka Bidegain 1,2* and Ika Paul-Pont 3
1Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, University of Southern Mississippi, Ocean Springs, MS, United States, 2Department of
Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, 3 Laboratoire des Sciences
de l’Environnement Marin, Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer, Plouzané, France
Keywords: microplastic, marine debris, pathogen transmission, microbial process, marine disease
A commentary on
Plastic waste associated with disease on coral reefs
by Lamb, J. B., Willis, B. L., Fiorenza, E. A., Couch, C. S., Howard, R., Rader, D. N., et al. (2018).
Science 359, 460–462. doi: 10.1126/science.aar3320
This commentary addresses the important issue of the influence of plastic waste on marine disease
risk recently raised by Lamb et al. (2018) in their article “Plastic waste associated with disease on
coral reefs” and poses new questions beyond this comprehensive study.
The first-ever Europe-wide strategy on plastics adopted on 16 January (EC, 2018) followed a
landmark December 2017 United Nations resolution signed by nearly 200 countries to fight ocean
plastic waste (UNEP, 2017). These policy actions aim to revolutionize the design, production,
use, and recycling of plastics, which have come to dominate the litter and debris ending up in
our coastal seas and open oceans. We have become increasingly cognizant of the direct effects of
marine plastic pollution on human and wildlife health (Galloway, 2015; Galloway et al., 2017).
Many different impacts of plastic marine debris (PMD), including microplastics (diameter<5mm)
and nanoplastics (diameter <100 nm), have been observed (e.g., tissues inflammation, metabolic
disruption, decreased feeding and growth rates, impairment of reproduction, and increased
mortality) (Rist and Hartmann, 2018).
In their recent article, Lamb et al. (2018) suggest that mesoplastics (diameter >50mm)
entangled on coral reefs substantially increase the risk of disease for these organisms. Plastic debris
stresses corals giving pathogens a niche for invasion. However, the indirect effects of PMD on
microbial processes, pathogen transmission, and disease emergence are less well-known. There
is evidence of diverse microorganisms, including notable human, fish and bivalve pathogens,
such as some Vibrio species, living in the microbial community that is specifically enriched
on PMD (Kirstein et al., 2016; Harrison et al., 2018). Yet, the virulence and disease dynamics
of these pathogens hitching a ride on PMD are unknown (Keswani et al., 2016; Quero and
Luna, 2017), and in this regard, a key research question moving forward would be: what is the
role of PMD, particularly microplastics ingested by marine biota (clams, corals, fish, mussels,
oysters, etc.), in the transmission of marine and seafood-borne human pathogens? This complex
question would require a multidisciplinary approach focusing on the actual pathogenicity of
plastic-associated bacteria through RNA sequencing of virulence factors and detailed analysis of
the transmission dynamics through experimental exposure and modeling tools. The EU Strategic
Research Innovation Agenda for plastics should address this avenue of research, which is crucial
to understanding the disease process and to improving management responses to marine disease
challenges.
Bidegain and Paul-Pont Commentary: Plastic and Coral Disease
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
GB and IP-P discussed the idea, implications, and commented on
the manuscript at all stages.
FUNDING
GB was supported by a grant from the National Science
Foundation program in Ecology and Evolution of Infectious
Diseases (OCE-1216220).
REFERENCES
EC (2018). Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the
Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the
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(2018) 28 final. Available online at: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-
economy/pdf/plastics-strategy.pdf (accessed March 1, 2018).
Galloway, T. S., Cole, M., and Lewis, C. (2017). Interactions of microplastic
debris throughout the marine ecosystem. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 1:0116.
doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0116
Galloway, T.S. (2015). “Micro- and nano-plastics and human health,” in Marine
Anthropogenic Litter, eds M. Bergmann, L. Gutow, and M. Klages (Cham:
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Harrison, J. P., Hoellein, T. J., Sapp, M., Tagg, A. S., Ju-Nam, Y., and Ojeda, J.
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Lamb, J. B., Willis, B. L., Fiorenza, E. A., Couch, C. S., Howard, R., Rader, D. N.,
et al. (2018). Plastic waste associated with disease on coral reefs. Science 359,
460–462. doi: 10.1126/science.aar3320
Quero, G. M., and Luna, G. M. (2017). Surfing and dining on the “plastisphere”:
Microbial life on plastic marine debris. Adv. Oceanogr. Limnol. 8, 199–207.
doi: 10.4081/aiol.2017.7211
Rist, S., and Hartmann, N. B. (2018). “Aquatic ecotoxicity of microplastics and
nanoplastics: lessons learned from engineered nanomaterials,” in Freshwater
Microplastics - Emerging Environmental Contaminants? The Handbook of
Environmental Chemistry, Vol. 58, eds M. Wagner, S. Lambert (Cham:
Springer), 25–49.
UNEP (2017). Draft Resolution on Marine Litter and Microplastics
UNEP/EA.3/L.20. United Nations Environment Assembly of the United
Nations Environment Programme, Third session, Nairobi.
Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that the research was
conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could
be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Copyright © 2018 Bidegain and Paul-Pont. This is an open-access article distributed
under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The
use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the
original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original
publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.
No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these
terms.
Frontiers in Marine Science | www.frontiersin.org 2 July 2018 | Volume 5 | Article 237


Commentary: Plastic waste associated with disease on coral reefs

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Commentary: Plastic waste associated with disease on coral reefs

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