Many sea creatures form flocks and nest on plastic trash floating in the ocean

Called the neo-ocean community, swarms of these creatures are growing in the Pacific Garbage Island area and drifting with the currents.

According to The Guardian, new research published in the journal Nature Communications shows that plastic waste in the middle of the ocean is becoming an artificial habitat for coastal creatures.

Garbage is collected at sea.

The study authors made the above information after observing water bottles, old toothbrushes, fishing nets being thrown into the sea. It is likely that coastal creatures evolved to be better adapted to life on plastic litter.

Ten years ago, marine researchers thought that coastal creatures could not survive in the fashion of drifting in the harsh oceans. However, the tsunami in Japan in 2011 caused scientists to change this view. At that time, about 300 Asian sea creatures cling to floating plastic waste to reach the coast of North America.

Now, researchers have a term for these types of floating creatures: new communities living near the surface of the sea, i.e. species such as anemones, snake-tailed starfish, shrimp, barnacles, etc. plastics and where the currents take them. Plastic litter is giving coastal organisms a wider geographical distribution than researchers previously thought.

The above phenomenon seems to be the winning marine life, adapting to living conditions despite the dumping of human waste. However, Dr. Juan Jose Alava, an expert at the University of British Columbia, thinks that is not the case. This phenomenon, he says, will expose exotic species to sensitive habitats, where they can become invasive and destructive to native communities.

Furthermore, these communities are essentially 'ecological traps'. The reason is because when floating with the floating garbage in the sea, the organisms that live on it attract creatures higher up in the food chain, such as fish, turtles, mammals. When these species enter the area with the floating garbage to find food and shelter, they will eat the creatures living on this plastic waste and swallow the plastic waste in their stomach and then have a high risk of death.

The UN's 2021 report shows that the growing scale of plastic pollution is posing a threat to the entire world's seas and oceans.