Microplastics: A Potential Vector for Pathogens in Aquatic Ecosystems
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This review addresses the critical issue of microplastic (MP) pollution in aquatic environments, with an emphasis on the potential role of MPs as vectors for pathogens. The persistence of MPs, resulting from their strong resistance to degradation, poses major global environmental and public-health challenges. Their inherent stability and large surface area promote pathogen adhesion, rendering MPs a favorable medium for the adsorption and transport of both pollutants and microorganisms. This review first explores the key physicochemical properties of MPs and the decisive factors that influence pathogen adhesion to MP surfaces. It then examines the environmental impacts and associated health risks of MP pollution in marine and freshwater ecosystems, along with its implications for human exposure through the food chain. A critical analysis and discussion of the multiple dimensions of MPs as potential vectors for pathogens highlight the urgent need to implement advanced waste-management strategies and water-treatment technologies. Furthermore, the review emphasizes the necessity of an integrated research approach to elucidate the mechanisms and impacts of MPs as pathogen carriers in aquatic ecosystems.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".