FIG 7.

(A) Conceptual paradigm showing the relationship of bacterial community assembly processes on microplastics compared to those in water and sediment. (B) The direct and indirect effects of the bacterial community composition in water and sediment on the bacterial community assembly on microplastics were analyzed by path coefficient analysis. Among the direct effects of water and sediment on the microplastic bacterial communities, water was the largest (0.219), followed by sediment (−0.066). From the indirect effect, it was found that water also strongly contributed to the accumulation of bacterial communities on microplastics through sediment (0.059). (C) Bacterial community similarity between microplastics and water and between microplastics and sediment based on Bray-Curtis distance. The hollow squares in the box plots show the average values of community similarity, and the lines in the box plots are the median values.