Meet the floating animals that call the Great Pacific Garbage Patch home
EMILY KWONG, HOST:
You're listening to SHORT WAVE from NPR.
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KWONG: Trash as far as the eye can see, garbage floating for miles in the ocean - it's an image you've probably seen pictures of affixed to an article about ocean pollution or climate change. It's an image most people turn away from, but not marine biologist Fiona Chong.
FIONA CHONG: A garbage patch is a floating collection of plastic debris that came from land but has ended up in the oceans. And the plastic debris and the trash is carried there from land into the oceans by wind and ocean currents. And they kind of congregate there, and they swirl around.
KWONG: Fiona has stared into the soul of oceanic garbage more than most people as a Ph.D. student at the University of Hull in the U.K. Now, garbage patches circulate around five different ocean gyres, or huge rotating currents. Think water going around in a bathtub drain, except, of course, the water never drains. There's one in the Indian Ocean, two in the Atlantic Ocean and two in the Pacific Ocean. It's like a floating soup made up of fishing nets, garbage and peppered with microplastics. And the biggest one is the North Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
CHONG: Researchers estimate that it spans 1.6 million kilometers squared. Whenever somebody mentions, you know, a number like this, I struggle to picture it. But what I found useful was that people said that it's two times the size of Texas and three times the size of France.
KWONG: A whole country of garbage just swirling around in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California. Fiona and a team of scientists have been studying not the trash but the floating organisms called neuston who, in spite of it all, call the trash pile home. In their paper, they detail interesting creatures like the porpita, a bright blue relative of the jellyfish.
CHONG: It is really a floating circular disk on the ocean surface. And they also have tentacles to catch things like plankton and crustaceans that they eat.
KWONG: It is a welcome surprise to find life among all of this plastic and debris. In fact, Fiona argues this is no wasteland at all. It's a vibrant and thriving ecosystem. And it's a discovery that complicates our understanding of ocean plastic. On the one hand, pollution is clearly harmful for wildlife. Plastic ensnares marine mammals, poisons fish. But on the other hand, garbage patches have become habitats.
CHONG: So if we're getting really good and maybe indiscriminate in the way that we're cleaning it up, then you also risk to remove these whole systems that has its own food web and further extensions from the food web to other ecosystems, too.
KWONG: Today on the show, a look at the life in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and what's at stake for the local marine life when humans try to clean up their mess. I'm Emily Kwong, and you're listening to SHORT WAVE from NPR.
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KWONG: So I want to talk a little bit about how scientists like yourself and your team of collaborators have identified a whole host of life in the North Pacific Garbage Patch - a whole ecosystem, really. What are some of the species that you've found there?
CHONG: Yeah. So we'll start with the ones that we've seen quite a lot of. So we've got this organism called the by-the-wind-sailor, velella velella.
KWONG: Velella velella.
CHONG: Yeah, it's quite satisfying to say. It's this floating jellyfish-like creature - but it's not a jellyfish; it's a hydroid - that's blue in color with a sail...
KWONG: Oh.
CHONG: ...Floating above the surface. And it catches the wind, and it therefore can move following the wind, and quite far, as a result. So, yeah, they're translucent-looking, a bit of blue with tentacles underneath them to catch the food and the sail above to catch the wind. Yeah.
KWONG: Yeah. I'm looking at this organism, and it does - it looks like a little boat...
CHONG: Yeah.
KWONG: ...With a sail...
CHONG: Yeah.
KWONG: ...Popping up. But it's all - looks - it looks all very squishy and soft.
CHONG: It is squishy and soft.
KWONG: Have you poked it?
CHONG: I have. Actually, in my experience, I've found them on the beaches 'cause they get washed ashore...
KWONG: Oh.
CHONG: ...Because, you know, they...
KWONG: Yeah.
CHONG: ...Follow the wind.
KWONG: What else is there?
CHONG: What else is there? So another one that we see a lot of is porpita, what we call blue button. So they're very closely related to velella. So it's also a hydroid, and it is really a floating, circular disc on the ocean's surface. And they also have tentacles to catch things like plankton and crustaceans that they eat. And very interestingly with porpita, there's been observations where they have created a symbiosis, like, a partnership with small, juvenile fish. In this case, that means the small fish is hiding under this porpita. Imagine that you've got, like, a little umbrella on top of your head at all times. And that's probably because the porpita has stinging tentacles, which protect the fish from...
KWONG: Oh.
CHONG: ...Anything that might come at it. And all of this is happening in a very small scale. Like, porpita are mostly centimeters in diameter. And they've even shown that if you remove the porpita from the fish, it would be stressed. And then when they gave the porpita partner back, they were much happier. And they were also shown to, you know, actually be able to tell which was their porpita. So...
KWONG: What?
CHONG: The scientists introduce other porpita to that fish that they got, and they didn't want to go to that...
KWONG: The little fish were like...
CHONG: ...Other porpita.
KWONG: ...That's not my porpita. I want my porpita.
CHONG: Yeah, basically, which is amazing.
KWONG: I mean, it's not only a pretty menagerie, but what is also true is that it's a food web. Like, certain creatures are eating other creatures. Who eats who in the North Pacific Garbage Patch?
CHONG: Yeah. So the janthina snail is actually a predator. So it predates on the velella that I've mentioned...
KWONG: Yeah.
CHONG: ...As well as the blue button. So these neuston species - they actually can't swim, and they float with the currents and the wind. So they really rely on there being a high concentration of this whole system so that they could eat each other. Another really, like, charismatic, pretty neuston that's a predator is the glaucus atlanticus, which is the blue sea dragon. The blue sea dragon is actually a slug, and they also prey on other neuston. And in particular, the glaucus actually shows a preference for the man o' war. But they would also eat velella and porpita.
And so actually, within the surface neuston ecosystem, it is a food web on its own, somewhat self-sustaining. But we also know that other non-neuston organisms eat the neuston, such as the ocean sunfish. We know that sea birds come in and also eat the surface organisms as well as sea turtles. So they definitely are preyed on by much bigger things as well as being eaten by each other within the neuston ecosystem.
KWONG: Yeah.
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KWONG: There's clearly so much life on this garbage patch - like, not even a little bit but a lot. And one thing that your research found was, in looking at the concentrations of organisms, there were more in the middle than on the edges. Why is that?
CHONG: Yeah. The currents really just concentrate them into the middle of the patch, where there's a relative kind of stable patch in the middle of the gyre.
KWONG: And what difference does that make to the life that lives there that they're getting closer to each other as the gyre moves in?
CHONG: So them being in a higher concentration, you know, allows them to feed because they actually need to touch each other to eat each other. But also, there are evidence of them just being able to, you know, spawn.
KWONG: Right.
CHONG: But also, they need to bump into each other to mate.
KWONG: Fascinating. Wow. So this is a real ecosystem, but let's not forget where it's happening. Of course, it's happening in this garbage patch. And we know how dangerous microplastics and garbage is for bigger marine life, for entanglement, animals ingesting garbage. How has this research affected your views on ocean cleanup of the patch?
CHONG: Yeah. So it's definitely not a good thing. It is a shame that us humans, you know, have such large impacts in the ocean that, you know, our footprint is so far out. You know, plastic being in the patch could be harmful for other marine organisms. Like we've mentioned, we have sea turtles, seabirds and the sunfish coming in, eating our neuston ecosystem. So when they take these mouthfuls, they would ingest plastics, too, like you've said.
So if we're getting really good and maybe indiscriminate in the way that we're cleaning it up, then you also risk to remove these whole systems that has its own food web and further extensions from the food web to other ecosystems, too, which suggests to me and my colleagues that there needs to be better ways of cleaning up the ocean. Or better yet, we just should curb it at the source. We shouldn't let the plastic and the plastic debris and the trash go out at all. That is probably quite difficult, but we should try it.
KWONG: So what would happen if the garbage patch were just left there, if there were no cleanup effort?
CHONG: If there weren't any cleanup efforts, the plastic that's already there will be subjected to weathering and, you know, chemical breakdown. So big pieces become small pieces. And small pieces become smaller pieces. And it becomes even harder to catch them. So they would likely stay in the environment because they're persistent pollutants. They might then get eaten by marine organisms. But, you know, realistically, they probably won't disappear unless the chemical composition within the plastic changes so that it sinks, in which case then it sinks to the bottom of the sea.
KWONG: If the whole world could listen to you talk about this garbage patch, what would be your recommendation?
CHONG: So I think on a day-to-day basis, you could definitely be more aware of your footprint, your own trash. And a better waste management system needs to be in place for countries that are really big polluters. If there are any kind of cleanup efforts, I really think that they should be closer to shore. I mean, that's probably better because it is on land and closer to us. At least the carbon footprint wouldn't be as high. But, again, that probably comes with a lot of other problems, such as there is life in the rivers. And how do you make sure that you can differentiate that from the river trash, per se?
KWONG: The bycatch problem.
CHONG: Yeah. And finally, actually, the fishing industry is a big polluter of the open ocean. The ghost nets - so the fishing nets that are maybe damaged and therefore they're just floating in the middle of the sea - those are actually what I found a lot in the middle of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. So...
KWONG: Yeah.
CHONG: They definitely also need to be held accountable.
KWONG: So changes to the fishing industry, changes to where we prioritize cleanup and changes to how we dispose of garbage in the first place. Fiona Chong, it's been so good to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on SHORT WAVE.
CHONG: Thank you.
KWONG: You're welcome.
We are going to put a link to Fiona's paper in our episode notes. Definitely check it out, at the very least for the photos of the new sonic life. You actually don't want to miss those. All right, before I head out, I have some news. I'm going to be taking a break from SHORT WAVE for a little bit to work on a new podcast for NPR member station LAist. It's a big change after four years on the show for me. And I am excited to share with you what I make. And don't worry. Regina Barber and Aaron Scott are going to hold down the fort while I'm gone, bringing you the very best science reporting three days a week. Thank you so much for your support of us and our show.
This episode was produced by Carly Rubin and Berly McCoy. It was edited by managing producer Rebecca Ramirez, and Rebecca checked the facts. Margaret Luthar was the audio engineer. I'm Emily Kwong. Thank you so much for listening to SHORT WAVE from NPR.
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