Nano/micro-plastics effects in agricultural landscapes: an overlooked threat to pollination, biological pest control, and food security

TL;DR

Nano/micro-plastics pose an overlooked threat to pollination, pest control, and food security by affecting organisms and landscape dynamics, requiring urgent research on exposure pathways and ecosystem impacts.

Contribution

This paper synthesizes current knowledge on NMP effects on pollinators and biocontrol agents at multiple scales, highlighting the need for further risk assessment.

Findings

NMP ingestion causes gene expression changes and organ damage in organisms.

NMP may amplify effects of pathogens and antibiotics in ecosystems.

NMP alters landscape properties, creating 'NMP islands' with high concentrations.

Abstract

Biodiversity-associated ecosystem services such as pollination and biocontrol may be severely affected by emerging nano/micro-plastics (NMP) pollution. We synthesized the little-explored effects of NMP on pollinators and biocontrol agents on the organismal, farm and landscape scale. For instance ingested NMP trigger organismal changes from gene expression, organ damage to behavior modifications. At the farm and landscape level, NMP will likely amplify synergistic effects with other threats such as pathogens and antibiotics, and may alter landscape properties such as floral resource distributions in high NMP concentration areas, what we call NMP islands. It is essential to understand the functional exposure pathways of NMP on pollinators and biocontrol agents to comprehensively evaluate the risks for agricultural ecosystems and global food security.