Olga Pantos

Institute of Environmental Science and Research · Environmental Science

Plastic pollution is pervasive in our environment, with impacts seen across ecosystems and taxa. While plastic has become an integral part of our daily lives, not all of it is readily apparent, making it challenging to effectively reduce plastic pollution. A hidden source of plastic pollution is plastic-based printing, which is used on a wide range...

Wastewater treatment facilities can filter out some plastics before they reach the open environment, yet microplastics often persist throughout these systems. As they age, microplastics in wastewater may both leach and sorb pollutants and fragment to provide an increased surface area for bacterial attachment and conjugation, possibly impacting anti...

Plastic pollution in the terrestrial environment is emerging as another significant human-made threat to ecosystem function and health. Plastic contamination can range from the macro- to the nanoscale, and environmental impacts are evident at each level. Although significant knowledge gaps remain regarding the interactions between the natural envir...

Background Plastic pollution is a severe threat to marine ecosystems. While some microbial enzymes can degrade certain plastics, the ability of the global ocean microbiome to break down diverse environmental plastics remains limited. We employed metatranscriptomic data from an international ocean survey to explore global and regional patterns in mi...

Plastics are an emerging class of environmental contaminants whose impacts are not yet fully understood. Trace elements, another class of environmental contaminant and commonly associated with plastics, have been widely researched and are known to be toxic to organisms. However, the combined impacts of these two contaminants on the environment rema...

Complex microbial communities colonize plastic substrates over time, strongly influencing their fate and potential impacts on marine ecosystems. Among the first colonizers, diatoms play an important role in the development of this 'plastiphere'. We investigated 936 biofouling samples and the factors influencing diatom communities associated with pl...

Link to full report: https://hdp-au-prod-app-nels-shape-files.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/7217/0527/4358/Appendix_N_Cawthron_Microplastics_Report.pdf

Plastic has infiltrated every ecosystem on the planet, making encounters between this anthropogenic pollutant and fauna inevitable. Abiotic environmental breakdown involving light, oxygen, temperature and mechanical forces is well-characterized, while biotic degradation mechanisms are less well-understood. Reports of the role of macrofauna in the f...

The ubiquity of plastic debris in marine environments raises the question, what impacts do plastics have on our marine microbiota? To investigate this, we applied bacterial 16S rRNA gene and fungal ITS2 region sequencing to identify changes in microbial biofilm community compositions on marine plastic, over time. We sampled biofilm on virgin linear...

Internationally, the environmental damage caused by the improper disposal of approximately 100 Mt of plastic waste per annum is of growing concern. Attempts to address this issue have generated many hundreds of scientific studies announcing the discovery of novel plastic-degrading microorganisms and their respective enzymes. On closer inspection, h...

The number of publications reporting putative plastic-degrading microbes and proteins is continuously increasing, necessitating the compilation of these data and the development of tools to facilitate their analysis. We developed the PlasticDB web application to address this need, which comprises a database of microorganisms and proteins reported t...

Plastic pollution in a growing problem globally. In addition to the continuous flow of plastic particles to the environment from direct sources, and through the natural wear and tear of items, the plastics that are already there have the potential to breakdown further and therefore provide an immense source of plastic particles. With the continued...

Plastic pollution is threatening aquatic ecosystems and wildlife. Understanding the characteristics and extent of plastic pollution is the first step towards improving management and therefore the environmental impacts. Pre-production pellets are used in the manufacture of a range of consumer items. The Avon–Heathcote Estuary/Ihutai in Aotearoa–New...

Global plastic production has increased exponentially since manufacturing commenced in the 1950’s, including polymer types infused with diverse additives and fillers. While the negative impacts of plastics are widely reported, particularly on marine vertebrates, impacts on microbial life remain poorly understood. Plastics impact microbiomes directl...

Here we provide a first assessment of microplastics (MPs) in stomach contents of 15 common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) from both single and mass stranding events along the New Zealand coast between 2019 and 2020. MPs were observed in all examined individuals, with an average of 7.8 pieces per stomach. Most MPs were fragments (77%, n = 90) as oppos...

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have been identified as a source of microplastics, an emerging contaminant class of increasing concern, to the environment. Three WWTPs in the Canterbury region, New Zealand, were sampled bi-monthly from winter (June) to summer (December), to assess the variability of the abundance, morphology and polymer type of...

Airborne microplastics have been identified throughout the Northern Hemisphere in several studies. Synthesising measurements from multiple studies to derive a global distribution of airborne microplastics is difficult because no standard sampling protocol currently exists. Furthermore, measurements from the Southern Hemisphere are largely absent. W...

The number of plastic-degrading microorganisms reported is rapidly increasing, making it possible to explore the conservation and distribution of presumed plastic-degrading traits across the diverse microbial tree of life. Putative degraders of conventional high-molecular-weight polymers, including polyamide, polystyrene, polyvinylchloride, and pol...

Microplastics are increasingly being recognised as a potential threat to New Zealand's coastal waters, however there is limited data on abundance of microplastics in marine organisms for New Zealand. Microplastic ingestion by the iconic green-lipped mussel Perna canaliculus was assessed. Microplastics were found in Perna canaliculus from 6 out of 9...

Microbialization refers to the observed shift in ecosystem trophic structure towards higher microbial biomass and energy use. On coral reefs, the proximal causes of microbialization are overfishing and eutrophication, both of which facilitate enhanced growth of fleshy algae, conferring a competitive advantage over calcifying corals and coralline al...

Diuron is a herbicide commonly used in agricultural areas where excess application causes it to leach into rivers, reach sensitive marine environments like the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) lagoon and pose risks to marine life. To investigate the impact of diuron on whole prokaryotic communities that underpin the marine food web and are integral to cora...

Map of the sampling locations The sampling locations within Australia (inset) and the Great Barrier Reef lagoon (main panel) are shown. The main rivers influencing these sites are depicted in blue and the arrow indicates the direction of the main current.

Details of the Cape Ferguson diuron incubation experiment (A) Triplicate flasks incubated at 25 °C with or without diuron amendment, and with or without light for 365 days. (B) Example of a flask incubated with diuron in the light and in which signs of growth are visible at day 365. (C) Micrograph showing DAPI-stained cells in a diuron-treated ligh...

Classification of abundant unaffiliated OTUs in the Cape Ferguson microbiomes Classification performed using RDP (80% confidence) and Silva’s SINA (95% identity).

Rarefaction curves for the Cape Ferguson incubations These rarefaction curves show sample OTU diversity as a function of sequencing depth for each experimental treatments: (A) Chao1 richness and (B) Shannon-Wiener index. The black dashed line indicates the rarefaction depth used in this study.

Heatmap of microbial genera relative abundance over the one-year Cape Ferguson incubations The four incubation conditions are control + dark (C_D), control + light (C_L), diuron + dark (D_D) and diuron + light (D_L), with each replicate shown (R2, R3 and R3). Only microbial genera reaching 1% are indicated.

Maximum air temperatures (in °C) recorded at the sampling sites compared to their seasonal average ∗ Average for the sampling and six preceding days (7–13 Oct 2009 for Dunk Island, 8–14 May 2012 for Cape Ferguson). ∗∗ Average for the periods spanning 1 Apr–31 Oct in the years 2009–2012. ∗∗∗ Average for the periods spanning 1 Nov–31 Mar in the years...

Water parameters and quality index near the Dunk Island and Cape Ferguson sites for the sampling years Each water quality index values is measured over four years. PN denotes particulate organic nitrogen, PP particulate phosphorus, Chl a chlorophyll a, and SS suspended solids. The water quality index was color-coded as: dark green (very good), ligh...

Distance from the sampling sites to the nearest influencing rivers and river discharges during sampling weeks compared to seasonal averages ∗ Average for the sampling and six preceding days (7–13 Oct 2009 for Dunk Island, 8–14 May 2012 for Cape Ferguson). ∗∗ Average for the periods spanning 1 Apr–31 Oct in the years 2009–2012. ∗∗∗ Average for the p...

Dynamics of the microbiomes over the one-year Cape Ferguson incubations The three replicates in each of the four incubation conditions were averaged and only microbial orders reaching 10% are indicated.

OTU-level PCoA of the Cape Ferguson microbiomes (Hellinger-based) for all incubation times Circle size is proportional to sampling day. The p-values from PERMANOVA tests of the differences between diuron-treated and control incubations are shown. Red crosses indicate OTUs that drive sample differences.

Alignment of two metagenomic reads from Dunk Island against known phenylurea hydrolases (position 365-445) Residues are colored based on the Clustal X scheme. The bottom panel represents the number of conserved amino acids at each position and their consensus.

Microbial diversity in the Cape Ferguson incubation flasks The number of OTUs, species richness (Chao1) and overall species diversity (Shannon-Wiener index) were calculated after rarefaction, taxonomic assignments and gene-copy number correction.

Diuron and PSII HEq measurements near the Dunk Island and Cape Cleveland sites between 2005 and 2010 Data source: Lewis et al., 2009; Kennedy et al., 2012a; Kennedy et al., 2012b.

Meteorological and hydrological comparison of Dunk Island and Cape Ferguson

Reef-building corals form complex relationships with a range of microorganisms including bacteria, archaea, fungi and the unicellular microalgae of the genus Symbiodinium, which together form the coral holobiont. These symbionts are known to have both beneficial and deleterious effects on their coral host, but little is known about what the governi...

Significance The study explores the impact of anthropogenic ocean warming and acidification on intact coral reef assemblages using large-scale, replicated mesocosms that simulate future conditions under natural levels of seasonal variability.

Transmission electron micrograph of an oblique plane section of a coral desmocyte close to the site of the endosymbiotic hydroid, Zanclea margaritae. Roughly cylindrical tenons (indicated by arrow head) extend in to the fibrillar mesoglea. Their irregular cross-sectional profiles provide a greater surface area for attachment within the mesoglea. df...

Hydroids form symbiotic relationships with a range of invertebrate hosts. Where they live with colonial invertebrates such as corals or bryozoans the hydroids may benefit from the physical support and protection of their host's hard exoskeleton, but how they interact with them is unknown. Electron microscopy was used to investigate the physical int...

Reef building corals form close associations with unicellular microalgae, fungi, bacteria and archaea, some of which are symbiotic and which together form the coral holobiont. Associations with multicellular eukaryotes such as polychaete worms, bivalves and sponges are not generally considered to be symbiotic as the host responds to their presence...

The role of both host and dinoflagellate symbionts was investigated in the response of reef-building corals to thermal stress in the light. Replicate coral nubbins of Stylophora pistillata and Porites cylindrica from the GBR were exposed to either 28 °C (control) or 32 °C for 5 days before being returned to an ambient reef temperature (28 °C). S. p...

Historical accounts of shark abundance in the Line Islands. (0.05 MB DOC)

Annual Fish Catch for Export on Kiritimati (0.66 MB TIF)

Aquarium reef fish catch for export at Kiritimati (April–December, 2005). (0.03 MB DOC)

Non-coral invertebrate abundance on the northern Line Islands. (0.12 MB DOC)

Non-coral invertebrate data analysis: Median test for comparison of species abundance between atolls. (0.05 MB DOC)

Map of the central Pacific, including atolls of the Line and Phoenix Islands. Colors reflect mean sea surface temperatures for August 2005. Note the latitudinal gradient of temperature determined by meeting of the equatorial current and countercurrent (3.43 MB TIF)

The gradient of human disturbance in the northern Line Islands: Population, fishing, and waste. (0.05 MB DOC)

Population data for the northern Line Islands (0.05 MB TIF)

Total annual reef fish catch at Kiritimati (0.68 MB TIF)

Proportions of Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus present in the large metagenomic fraction. (2.11 MB TIF)

The percentage of the predicted host range of phage in the small metagenomic libraries. (2.18 MB TIF)

Total number of sequences retrieved in each metagenomic library and the number that showed similarities to those stored in the SEED platform. (0.03 MB DOC)

Underwater sampling equipment used to obtain the 150-liter water sample for the metagenomic analysis. The water was taken from the surfaces and crevices of the reef structure. (1.01 MB TIF)

The taxonomic components of the large metagenomic fraction analyzed via sequence similarities to the A) whole genome within the SEED platform, and B) Pfam database. (2.18 MB TIF)

The subsystems that showed differences between Kingman and Kiritimati. (2.18 MB TIF)

Nutrient and organic carbon concentrations measured on coral reefs. (0.10 MB DOC)

Effective conservation requires rigorous baselines of pristine conditions to assess the impacts of human activities and to evaluate the efficacy of management. Most coral reefs are moderately to severely degraded by local human activities such as fishing and pollution as well as global change, hence it is difficult to separate local from global eff...

Microbes are key players in both healthy and degraded coral reefs. A combination of metagenomics, microscopy, culturing, and water chemistry were used to characterize microbial communities on four coral atolls in the Northern Line Islands, central Pacific. Kingman, a small uninhabited atoll which lies most northerly in the chain, had microbial and...

This is the second of two chapters on the coral reefs of the five US Line and Phoenix Islands, consisting of Baker, Howland and Jarvis Islands, Kingman Reef, ; and Palmyra Atoll (Fig. 16.1). The previous chapter (Chapter 15, Maragos et al.) covers the history, geology, oceanography and biology, while this chapter covers the status, threats and sign...

Declines in coral cover are generally associated with increases in the abundance of fleshy algae. In many cases, it remains unclear whether algae are responsible, directly or indirectly, for coral death or whether they simply settle on dead coral surfaces. Here, we show that algae can indirectly cause coral mortality by enhancing microbial activity...

Culture-independent molecular (16S ribosomal RNA) techniques showed distinct differences in bacterial communities associated with white band disease (WBD) Type I and healthy elkhorn coral Acropora palmata. Differences were apparent at all levels, with a greater diversity present in tissues of diseased colonies. The bacterial community associated wi...

Although commonly reported among disease occurrences of reef corals (Weil et al. 2002), the “white” diseases are probably the most enigmatic. There are a number of these diseases, or syndromes, and confusion arises because of the very similar disease signs that are present in association with each of them. The ‘white syndromes’ include white band d...

The bacterial communities associated with the Caribbean coral Montastrea annularis showing tissue lesions indicative of a White Plague (WP)-like disease were investigated. Two molecular screening techniques using bacterial 16S rDNA genes were used and demonstrated distinct differences between the bacterial communities of diseased and non-diseased c...

The bacterial community associated with black band disease (BBD) of the scleractinian corals Diploria strigosa, Montastrea annularis and Colpophyllia natans was examined using culture-independent techniques. Two complementary molecular screening techniques of 16S rDNA genes [amplified 16S ribosomal DNA restriction analysis (ARDRA) of clone librarie...

To determine the spatial structure of microbial communities associated with disease lesions of reef corals (Scleractinia). Agarose pre-embedding preserved the structure of the disease lesion and surrounding tissues prior to demineralization of the carbonate exoskeleton and embedding in resin. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) was used to lo...