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Influence of bioplastics´ biodegradation on soil quality
Paluchová, Natálie ; Doležalová Weissmannová, Helena (oponent) ; Kučerík, Jiří (vedoucí práce)
Over the past decade, the society has brought attention to microplastics. They are produced by various industries and spread across the environment. For long time, they were considered inert, without further effect on plants and any other living organisms, however as recent studies found out, they might be a serious threat. Therefore, several researchers, including us, begun to focus on their transport and transformation in the environment. Most of the researchers, however, focus only on their presence in the marine and fresh waters and hence their behaviour in air and soil remains rather unclear. Furthermore, bioplastics has been brought to the media spotlight. They are presented as an ecological alternative to solve all the problems mentioned so far (and more). But what is often forgotten, their main advantage might also be their bottleneck. For that reason, this master's thesis focuses on negative effects associated with the presence of microplastics (specifically poly-(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate bioplastic) in soils as their common receptor. We combined respirometry, elemental analysis, thermogravimetry and enzymatic assays to investigate physico-chemical changes in soil induced by the presence of the bioplastic. Our results showed a negative effect on soil organic matter and water retention in the soil. In this sense, priming effect was widely investigated as acceleration and also retardation of soil organic matter decomposition took place. We registered different influence of selected concentrations of biopolymer on the soil and also the influence of soil properties on the course of degradation. Last but not lest, increased enzymatic activities clearly suggested impact of biopolymer presence on the microbial community. Such findings let us conclude, that biopolymer addition leads to long-term impact on a range of soil ecosystem services.
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