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Microplastic effects on soil system parameters: a meta-analysis study

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Abstract

Microplastics are generally considered as an emerging contaminant in the environment due to their toxic additives and transport of other contaminants. However, the potential threats of microplastics in soil should be concerned due to inconsistent research results. In this study, a meta-analysis based on 32 recent relevant studies was conducted to compare the response of soil system parameters including microbial community, aggregate structure, soil nutrient contents, and crop growth to the presence of microplastics. The results showed that microplastics presented no significant effects on soil dissolved organic carbon contents and the amounts of available phosphate, nitrate, and ammonium. Although microplastics would not significantly influence the diversity of soil microorganisms, they could significantly increase soil microorganism amounts with a standard mean difference at 19.32. We also found that microplastics tended to significantly decrease soil water stable macro-aggregate (> 0.25 mm) contents with a significantly negative standard mean difference (− 0.90) in meta-analysis. Moreover, soil microplastics seemed not to affect crop growth by having non-significant effects on both crop under-ground and above-ground biomasses. These results indicate that up to date, the main negative impacts caused by microplastics on soil systems could be their negative functions on soil aggregation.

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All data generated or analyzed in this study are included in the published articles mentioned in Table 1.

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Funding

This study was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Nankai University (63191330), the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by Tian** (TJSQNTJ-2018–06), and the Youth project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (42107013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hubei Polytechnic University, Hubei, 435003, Huangshi, China

    Haixiao Li

  2. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tian**, 300350, China

    Le Liu

  3. Department of Soils and Agri-Food Engineering, Laval University, Paul Comtois Bldg., Quebec City, QC, G1K 7P4, Canada

    Yan Xu

  4. **’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Junyang Zhang

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  1. Haixiao Li
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  2. Le Liu
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  3. Yan Xu
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  4. Junyang Zhang
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Contributions

HL is responsible for conceptualization, funding acquisition, investigation, supervision, data curation, formal analysis, software, visualization, and writing—original draft of the study; LL is partly in charge of conceptualization, methodology, and validation of the study; YX is also partly responsible for formal analysis, methodology, and validation of the study; JZ is partly responsible for data curation, formal analysis, software, and visualization for each part of the analysis in the study; all the authors have participated in writing—review and editing work of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Haixiao Li.

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Li, H., Liu, L., Xu, Y. et al. Microplastic effects on soil system parameters: a meta-analysis study. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 11027–11038 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-18034-9

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