Microplastics (MPs), miniscule plastic particles measuring less than 5 mm in size, have become a concern in terrestrial ecosystems, with primarily agricultural and wetland soils being the soils with highest plastic loadings. The adverse effect of MPs might lead to changes in physicochemical and biological characteristics of soil including soil properties, microbial communities, plants, as well as the potential or affirmed correlations among them. Therefore, understanding the risks and effects of MPs, particularly within the soil-plant-microbe context is challenging and have become a subject of substantial scientific inquiry. This comprehensive review is focused on the effects of MPs on the rhizosphere and plant-microbe symbiotic relationships, with implications for plant growth and ecosystem-level nutrient fluxes. MPs alter soil physicochemical properties, microbial community composition, and enzymatic activities in the rhizosphere, influencing nutrient availability and uptake by plants. These changes in the rhizosphere can disrupt plant-microbe symbiotic interactions, such as mycorrhizal associations and nitrogen-fixing symbioses, ultimately impacting plant growth and the cycling of nutrients within ecosystems. Furthermore, we elaborate on the effects of MPs on the rhizosphere and plant-microbe symbiotic relationships carrying implications for plant growth and ecosystem-level nutrient fluxes. Future research directions and solutions to the microplastics menace acknowledging combined effects of MPs and other contaminants, advanced technologies for MPs identification and quantification, and microbial engineering for MPs remediation. This knowledge of MPs-induced impacts on soil-plant-microbe interactions is essential to generate mitigating actions in soil environmental management and conservation.

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Novel nanomaterial-based pesticide formulations are increasingly perceived as promising aids in the transition to more efficient agricultural production systems. The current understanding of potential unintended (eco)toxicological impacts of nano-formulated pesticides is scarce, in particular with regard to (non-target) aquatic organisms and ecosystems. The present study reports the results of a long-term freshwater mesocosm experiment which assessed responses of individual zooplankton taxa and communities to a novel TiO₂-coated nano-formulation of the fungicide carbendazim. Population- and community trends were assessed and compared in response to the nano-formulation and its constituents applied individually (i.e. nano-sized TiO₂, carbendazim) and in combination (i.e. nano-sized TiO₂ & carbendazim). Minimal differences were observed between effects induced by the nano-formulation and its active ingredient (i.e. carbendazim) when applied at equivalent nominal test concentrations (4 μg L⁻¹). Nano-sized TiO₂ was found to affect zooplankton community trends when applied separately at environmentally realistic concentrations (20 μg L⁻¹ nominal test concentration). However, when nano-sized TiO₂ was applied in combination with carbendazim, nano-sized TiO₂ was found not to alter effects on community trends induced by carbendazim. The findings of the current study provide an extensive and timely addition to the current body of work available on non-target impacts of nano-formulated pesticides.

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Recently, the delivery of pesticides through novel controlled-release (nano-)formulations has been proposed intending to reduce (incidental) pesticide translocation to non-target sites. Concerns have however been raised with regards to the potentially enhanced toxicity of controlled-release (nano-)formulations to non-target organisms and ecosystems. We evaluated long-term (i.e. 1 and 3 month-) impacts of a novel controlled-release pesticide formulation (nano-TiO₂-coated carbendazim) and its individual and combined constituents (i.e. nano-sized TiO₂ and carbendazim) on naturally established freshwater macroinvertebrate communities. In doing so, we simultaneously assessed impacts of nano-sized TiO₂ (nTiO₂), currently one of the most used and emitted engineered nanomaterials world-wide. We determined ecological impacts on diversity (i.e. β-diversity), structure (i.e. rank abundance parameters), and functional composition (i.e. feeding guilds & trophic groups) of communities and underlying effects at lower organizational levels (i.e. population dynamics of individual taxa). Freshwater macroinvertebrate communities were negligibly impacted by nTiO₂ at environmentally realistic concentrations. The controlled-release (nano-)formulation significantly delayed release of carbendazim to the water column. Nevertheless, conventional- (i.e. un-coated-) and nTiO₂-coated carbendazim induced a similar set of adverse impacts at all investigated levels of ecological organization and time points. Our findings show fundamental restructuring of the taxonomic- and functional composition of macroinvertebrate communities as a result of low-level pesticide exposure, and thereby highlight the need for mitigating measures to reduce pesticide-induced stress on freshwater ecosystems.

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Safe-and-sustainable-by-design (SSbD) is a concept that takes a systems approach by integrating safety, sustainability, and functionality throughout a product’s the life cycle. This paper proposes a framework based on a prospective life cycle assessment for early safety and sustainability assessment. The framework’s purpose is to identify environmental sustainability and toxicity hotspots early in the innovation process for future SSbD applicability. If this is impossible, key performance indicators are assessed. Environmental sustainability aspects, such as global warming potential (GWP) and cumulative energy demand (CED), and toxicity aspects, such as human toxicity potential and freshwater ecotoxicity potential, were assessed upon applying the framework on a case study. The case study regarded using nano-titanium dioxide (P25-TiO2) or a modified nano-coated version (Cu2O-coated/P25-TiO2) as photocatalysts to produce hydrogen from water using sunlight. Although there was a decrease in environmental impact (GWP and CED), the modified nano-coated version had a relatively higher level of human toxicity and freshwater eco-toxicity. For the presented case study, SSbD alternatives need to be considered that improve the photocatalytic activity but are not toxic to the environment. This case study illustrates the importance of performing an early safety and environmental sustainability assessment to avoid the development of toxic alternatives.@en

Assessment of chronic impact of metallic nanoparticles (NPs) in soil ecosystems is a necessity for ensuring safe and sustainable application. NPs affect plants and their associated microbial life, while the plants and their associated microbiota affect the NPs' fate. Here, we measured the available Ag pool (determined as diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid-extractable Ag) in AgNP-amended sandy loam soil (1, 10, and 50 mg Ag per kg of soil) over a period of 63 d with and without lettuce. The associated impacts on soil pH, Ag accumulation in lettuce, and the responses of the rhizosphere bacterial community were determined. We found that the addition of AgNPs significantly increased the soil pH from 7.70 to 7.87 after a short-term (7 d) incubation. Noteworthily, the extractability of Ag in AgNP-amended soil was concentration-dependent and changed over time because of their continuous dissolution and uptake by plants. Ag uptake and upward translocation in lettuce positively correlated with the extractable Ag content in soil. Furthermore, a long-term (63 d) exposure to 50 mg/kg of AgNPs altered the structure and composition of the rhizosphere bacterial community potentially by regulation of bacterial groups associated with element (e.g., N and S) cycling and stress tolerance. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that the dynamic dissolution of AgNPs in sandy loam soil plays an important role in influencing the overall Ag bioavailability of the NPs in plants. The enhanced effects of AgNPs on the alterations in the rhizosphere bacterial community highlight that the long time-resolved dynamics of NP exposure should be taken into consideration for accurate ecological risk assessment of NPs in the soil ecosystem.

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Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO₂ NPs) are widely used as nano-agrochemicals. In this study we investigated the influence of soil heterogeneity on bacterial communities exposed to TiO₂ NPs over time. Clay and sandy soils with low- and high-organic matter contents were exposed to environmentally relevant concentration of TiO₂ NPs (1 mg/kg) and soil bacterial communities were sampled after short-term (15 days) and long-term exposure (60 days). After short-term TiO₂ NPs exposure, significant effects regarding the enzyme activity, bacterial community structure and composition, and community functioning were observed in the clay soils with high organic matter (clay-HOM) but not in other soil groups. Response alterations were observed to taxa belonging to Acidobacteria and Verrucomicrobia, and functional pathways related to carbohydrates degradation. These results indicated that soil heterogeneity play more important roles in shaping the bacterial community in soil with low clay fraction and less organic matter, while TiO₂ NPs selection was the main driver in inducing the compositional and functional impacts on the soil bacterial community in the presence of clay soil with high organic matter content. As exposure time increased, the bacterial community recovered after a long-term exposure of 60 days, suggesting that the bacterial evolution and adaptation could overcome the TiO₂ NPs selection after long-term exposure. Our results highlighted the importance of soil heterogeneity including clay fraction and organic matter and exposure duration in assessing the impact of nanoparticle on soil bacterial activity, community and function. By comprehensively evaluating the risks of nanoparticles on soil ecosystem and explicitly and explicitly include spatial and temporal variations, the benefit of nano-agrochemical products has the potential to be promoted in future applications.

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Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO₂NP) are increasingly released in soil ecosystems, while there is limited understanding of the impacts of TiO₂NP on soil bacterial communities. Here we investigated the effects of TiO₂NP on the taxonomic composition and functional profile of a soil bacterial community over a 60-day exposure period. In short-term exposure (1-day), contradictory effects on the taxonomic composition of soil bacterial communities were found after exposure to a low realistic environmental concentration of TiO₂NP at 1 mg/kg as compared to the effects induced by medium and high concentrations of TiO₂NP at 500 and 2000 mg/kg. After long-term exposure (60-day), the negative effects of TiO₂NP at the low concentration disappeared, and the inhibition by TiO₂NP of the abundance of core taxa was enhanced along with increasing exposure concentrations. However, although significant alterations were observed in the taxonomic composition over time and exposure concentrations, no significant change was observed in the community functional profile as well as enzyme activity after 60-day exposure, indicating that functional redundancy likely contributed to the bacterial community tolerance after the exposure to TiO₂NP. Our study highlighted the importance of assessing bacterial community compositional and functional responses in assessing the environmental risk of nanoparticles on soil ecosystems.

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Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO₂NP) are often released into the soil through repeated discharge of wastewater and repetitive applications as fertilizers. Adverse effects of a single pulse on soil bacterial communities have been widely studied, while the impact of repeated exposure is poorly understood. This study compared the impacts of single and repeated exposure scenarios on the soil bacterial community. The repeated exposure promoted the total bacterial biomass but reduced the community diversity and induced larger alterations in community composition compared to the single exposure. Regarding the dosing frequencies of repeated exposure, community divergence increased in initial dosing cycles, and community stability was re-established and remained in subsequent dosing cycles. According to the different tolerance to dosing frequencies, the dynamic response patterns of the featured OTUs and functional genes could be classified into four types: 1) promotion, 2) suppression-recovery-promotion, 3) promotion-suppression-stable, and 4) suppression. These results suggest that chronic exposure with repetitive low-dosing of nanoparticles induced a tendency towards larger alteration of both community composition and functioning than in case of application of a single pulse of the same dosage. This study brings new insight into understanding the compositional and predicted functional dynamics of the soil bacterial community in response to nanoparticles and identifies a data gap in realistic time-variable exposure testing.

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