Rapid bacterial colonization of low-density polyethylene microplastics in coastal sediment microcosms

BMC Microbiology

Table 2 Pairwise comparisons (ANOSIM) of the structure of bacterial communities on microplastics and within sediments over time

	LDPE-microplastics			Sediment
Exposure time	2 days	4 days	7 days	Immediate	4 days	7 days
4 days	0.10 ^a			0.08 (NS)
7 days	0.46 ^a	0.07 (NS)		0.12 (NS)	0.09 (NS)
14 days	0.67 ^a	0.38 ^a	0.01 (NS)	0.12 (NS)	0.00 (NS)	0.03 (NS)

^ap < 0.001 NS = not significant.
Global one-way ANOSIM R values for the factor `exposure time' are derived from T-RFLP datasets generated following PCR amplification of bacterial 16S rRNA genes amplified from DNA isolated from sediment-LDPE microcosms from three sampling sites (SP1, SP2 and WB). Values are shown only for sampling intervals for which data were available for all three sites.

ISSN: 1471-2180