It is now indisputable that plastics are ubiquitous and problematic in ecosystems globally. Many suggestions have been made about the role that biofilms colonizing plastics in the environment—termed the “Plastisphere”—may play in the transportation and ecological impact of these plastics. By collecting and re-analyzing all raw 16S rRNA gene sequencing and metadata from 2,229 samples within 35 studies, we have performed the first meta-analysis of the Plastisphere in marine, freshwater, other aquatic (e.g., brackish or aquaculture) and terrestrial environments. We show that random forest models can be trained to differentiate between groupings of environmental factors as well as aspects of study design, but—crucially—also between plastics when compared with control biofilms and between different plastic types and community successional stages. Our meta-analysis confirms that potentially biodegrading Plastisphere members, the hydrocarbonoclastic Oceanospirillales and Alteromonadales are consistently more abundant in plastic than control biofilm samples across multiple studies and environments. This indicates the predilection of these organisms for plastics and confirms the urgent need for their ability to biodegrade plastics to be comprehensively tested. We also identified key knowledge gaps that should be addressed by future studies.

现在无可争辩的是，塑料在全球生态系统中无处不在且存在问题。关于在环境中定殖塑料的生物膜（称为“塑料圈”）可能在这些塑料的运输和生态影响中发挥的作用，已经提出了许多建议。通过在 35 项研究中收集和重新分析来自 2,229 个样本的所有原始 16S rRNA 基因测序和元数据，我们首次对海洋、淡水、其他水生（例如，咸水或水产养殖）和陆地环境中的 Plastisphere 进行了荟萃分析。我们表明，可以训练随机森林模型来区分环境因素的分组以及研究设计的各个方面，但至关重要的是，与对照生物膜相比，塑料之间以及不同塑料类型和群落演替阶段之间也是如此。在多项研究和环境中，海洋螺菌目和交替单胞菌目在塑料中的含量始终高于对照生物膜样品。这表明这些生物体对塑料的偏好，并证实迫切需要对其生物降解塑料的能力进行全面测试。我们还确定了未来研究应解决的关键知识差距。