[Microbial Ecology in the Mask-derived Plastisphere in a Water Environment]

As a result of the impact of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases, the regular use of medical masks and the associated risk that the mask waste enters the water environment have increased, and the mask-derived microplastics are finally posing a potential impact on the aquatic ecological environment. This study explored the microbial diversity, function, assembly mechanism, and ecological network in the plastisphere derived from different layers of masks. The results indicated that the plastisphere in each layer had a unique microbial community, and the community richness gradually increased over time. The functions of microbial communities in the plastisphere, including pathogenicity, phototrophy, compound degradation, and the functions related to the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur, changed significantly over time. As to the microbial assembly mechanism in the plastisphere, stochastic processes were more dominant （NST>0.5）, but the influence of deterministic processes gradually grew. The ecological network results indicated that all the plastispheres exhibited a high number of modules and high modularity, and the complexity of the microbial community gradually decreased with colonization time. This study indicates that the mask-derived plastisphere has a unique ecological process, which strengthens our understanding of the ecological effects and microbial colonization processes of the mask-derived plastisphere.