| Has the presence of the microplastic in soil already affected evolutionary trajectories of soil microbiota? For example, has the microplastic created new niches for soil microbes? |
Persistence of the microplastic in soil, and the finding that the microplastic appears to be ubiquitous in soil samples even from relatively non-human influenced ecosystems (Scheurer and Bigalke 2018) |
| Can evolutionary changes to the microplastic within populations buffer against or exacerbate changes in microbial community composition? How do these changes interact with phenotypic plasticity? |
Eco-evolutionary dynamics |
| Does the microplastic lead to local extinctions of microbial populations? |
Changes in soil physical structure (as a consequence of possible effects on soil aggregation) can lead to local exclusion of biota, for example soil animals, which may host specific microbes (Veresoglou et al. 2015; Zhu et al. 2018) |
| How does the microplastic (and microplastic type) interact with other evolutionary drivers affecting soil microbial populations? |
Global change is inherently a multifactorial phenomenon; also within cities or on agricultural fields there are multiple evolutionary drivers that co-occur with microplastic contamination |
