Plasticene Seas – What Life on Floating Plastic Means For Our Ocean

×

Expand

Stephen Page

Dr. Linsey Haram

Speaker: Dr. Linsey Haram, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Millions of tons of plastic pollution enter the ocean each year. This global influx of plastic has devastating effects on marine life, including entanglement and plastic ingestion. In this talk, marine biologist Dr. Linsey Haram will reveal another unexpected consequence of rampant plastic pollution: the creation of artificial, floating habitat for coastal marine life in the open ocean. Dr. Haram will describe how her team studies life on these floating plastics in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (also known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"), and the surprising results they’ve found to date. These discoveries raise many challenging questions about the future of our oceans in the context of the global plastic pollution crisis.