The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now a thriving ecosystem

One species’ trash is another’s treasure. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean is now home to dozens of species, and the floating plastic island emphasizes how human civilization can influence even the most remote areas. More species in the open ocean can also facilitate the spread of invasive types.

Moving in

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is located within the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a “huge rotating current system between California and Hawaii” where “floating objects tend to get trapped instead of drifting away,” said Earth.com. The gyre has essentially created an island of tens of thousands of tons of plastic trash, approximately 80% of which originated on land. The size and shape of the patch is constantly changing.

Plastic is not the only thing present at the patch. Over time, much of the plastic has gained living inhabitants, according to a 2023 study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. Scientists found 484 animals from 46 species on plastic debris from the gyre. Inhabitants were not “merely riding the debris to a new location,” because “brooding females, rich with eggs and young” were found, as well as “animals at all life stages, including juveniles and adults,” said IFL Science. This range of life indicates that the organisms are there for the long haul and not just temporarily.

Many of the species living and thriving in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch “were able to reproduce asexually, essentially cloning themselves,” said Earth.com. “Their larvae also did not need to spend much time drifting freely in the water,” therefore “young animals could grow right on the same surface as the adults.” The reproductive cycle “fits well with a small, isolated raft of plastic that slowly circles within the gyre.”

House hunting

The discovered organisms largely made up two categories: coastal and pelagic, meaning species found in open water. “Barnacles, sea anemones, hydroids, amphipods, crabs and bryozoans are all represented, and most appear to come originally from the western Pacific, including the coasts of Japan.” said Econews. The mix of coastal and ocean life is called a “neopelagic community,” which is a “human-made ecosystem that exists only because of long-lived plastic floating far from land.”

Plastic may be the key for certain populations to expand into the open ocean. “Unlike natural floating substrates such as driftwood or pumice, plastic can persist for decades, thereby providing a continuous surface for attachment,” said The Economic Times. The plastic allows “coastal species that once would have died long before reaching remote islands” to “travel for years on these rafts,” said Econews.

The sampling of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch done by the study “likely doesn’t capture the biodiverse richness floating in the Pacific’s most polluted area,” said IFL Science. “Some animal groups, such as molluscs, were unexpectedly absent from the Patch, whereas others, such as sea anemones, were more common than in tsunami debris.” Unfortunately, open water travel “comes with serious risks,” especially introducing new invasive species, said Econews. Foreign species can use plastic to reach new areas where they “could compete with native corals, algae and invertebrates on reefs that are already stressed by warming, pollution and overfishing.”

Even though there is life on the Patch, it “does not diminish the urgency of reducing plastic production and improving waste management,” said The Economic Times. Instead, it “underscores the complexity of ocean systems and the long-lasting consequences of synthetic debris.”