How a humongous garbage patch in the Pacific breeds new bugs

The great Pacific garbage patch is giving sea striders a place to breed out on the open ocean, changing the natural environment there, new research suggests. The great Pacific garbage patch, known to scientists as the North Pacific Subtropial Gyre, is a large patch of mulched up plastic and other garbage, often said to be the size of Texas, floating in the Pacific Ocean. “This paper shows a dramatic increase in plastic over a relatively short time period and the effect it’s having on a common North Pacific Gyre invertebrate,” study researcher Miriam Goldstein, graduate student at the University of California San Diego, said in a statement. “We’re seeing changes in this marine insect that can be directly attributed to the plastic.” The sea strider, Halobates sericeus, is related to pond striders seen in freshwater lakes. It usually lays its eggs on floating objects in the ocean, like seashells, seabird feathers, tar lumps and pumice. The researchers compared recently collected plastic to that collected in 1972 under a microscope. They found that the number of pieces of plastic less than 0.2 inches (5 millimeters) in diameter increased about 100 times over the past 40 years. They also found that these tiny plastic pieces gave sea striders more room to lay their eggs, leading to much higher densities of the invertebrate in the garbage patch. By giving these insects a place to breed out on the open ocean, the plastic patch is changing the natural environment and could be having an impact on the local food web, the researchers said.