Fig. 4. Denitrifying activity and N2O production in the plastisphere and bulk water.
a Concentrations of N2O after the 24 h denitrification experiment. b Denitrification rates quantified by 15N isotope-pairing technique. Both N2O production and denitrification rate are normalized with microbial cell numbers by using the absolute abundances of 16S rRNA in the plastisphere and bulk water (see “Methods”). c Contributions of denitrification and Anammox processes to N2 production. Error bars are the standard error. Different letters (a, b, and c) indicate the significant differences (P < 0.05) among each plastisphere group and bulk water group.