Meet the Floating Animals That Call the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Home

Trash from humans is constantly spilling into the ocean — so much so that there are five gigantic garbage patches in the seas. They hang out at the nexus of the world’s ocean currents, changing shape with the waves. The largest is the North Pacific Garbage Patch, known colloquially as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

These areas were long thought to have been uninhabited, the plastics and fishing gear too harmful to marine life. But researchers have recently uncovered a whole ecosystem of life in this largest collection of trash. “This research has shown me that there is more life than we expected there … a whole ecosystem that are in the middle of the patch,” says marine biologist Fiona Chong.

Fiona is part of a team of researchers that published a paper in PLOS Biology documenting the inhabitants of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch earlier this year. Their most common inhabitants include: Porpita (also called “blue button”), a small disc-like animal with “tentacles” radiating outward, closely related to jellyfish; Velella (also called the “by-the-wind-sailor”), which looks like a flat disc with a kind of “sail” running across the top; and Janthina a violet sea snail that traps bubbles to stay afloat. These and other organisms that float freely atop the water are called neuston.

Neuston form an ecosystem and food web amongst themselves. Janthina are known to eat both Velella and Porpita. Glaucus atlanticus, another neuston observed in very small quantities in the patch, is another predator. Known as the “blue sea dragon,” it prefers to snack on the Portuguese man o’war but has been known to chomp on both Porpita and Velella.

These marine animals are also are part of a larger ecosystem. Fiona notes that Porpita are known to sometimes form symbiotic partnerships with small, juvenile fish that are stressed when removed from their individual Porpita. Plus, animals like the ocean sunfish, seabirds and sea turtles are known to munch on neuston.

“It’s a shame that us humans have such large impacts in the ocean that, you know, our footprint is so far out,” she laments. “Plastic being in the patch could be harmful for other marine organisms.”

For Fiona, the realization that animals call the Great Pacific Garbage Patch home has made her reconsider efforts aim at indiscriminately cleaning up the trash. She also hopes that the findings will make people and the fishing industry more aware of their footprint and lead to better waste management systems. That’s because for her, one of the most ideal solutions to the ocean debris problem is curbing plastic use. If less is used in the first place, less will eventually make its way to the ocean.

“That is probably quite difficult, but we should try it,” she says.

Read Fiona and her collaborators’ paper, High concentrations of floating neustonic life in the plastic-rich North Pacific Garbage Patch

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This episode was produced by Carly Rubin and Berly McCoy. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. The audio engineer was Maggie Luthar.

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