Fig. 3: Bacterial growth efficiency (BGE) increased with the addition of plastic leachate depending on lake characteristics.
From: Plastic pollution fosters more microbial growth in lakes than natural organic matter
a Bolded line shows mean ± 95% CI for BGE in each treatment. Thin lines join mean effects for each of 18 study lakes with respiration data (n = 1 replicate per treatment per lake). BGE increased relatively less with plastic leachate addition as either the (b) functional diversity of lake dissolved organic matter (DOM) increased, (c) lake dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration increased, or (d) lake bacterial diversity decreased. Bolded lines are the estimated means ± 95% CIs for the trends and points are observed changes in BGE with plastic leachate addition. Horizontal line indicates no change in BGE with leachate addition (i.e. fold change = 1), whereas values above and below indicate an increase and decrease in BGE, respectively.
