Small plastic particles find their way through the roots to the leaves and needles of trees. In this way they disrupt photosynthesis, as an experiment at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich shows.
To do this, the research team grew 200 young trees, half blueberries and half spruces. They planted their roots in nutrient-enriched water instead of soil. They then added varying concentrations of tiny plastic particles, called nanoplastics, to the water.
After just a few weeks, the researchers discovered one to two milligrams of nanoplastics per gram of plant material in the roots. Both in the stem and in the leaves and needles, there were about ten to a hundred times less.
No influence on growth
Measurements showed that the effectiveness of photosynthesis in blueberries decreased by a third within two weeks and in spruce trees by a tenth within four weeks. However, the plastic particles did not affect growth. According to the researchers, this may be because the study was only conducted over a short period.
“Our study is not meant to suggest that trees could die from nanoplastics,” says scientist Denise Mitrano. But the plastic can be an additional stress factor. The fact that part of the energy in sunlight is no longer used for photosynthesis is a typical stress response of trees. Instead, the energy was then dissipated as heat.
Source: Krone
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