The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is a floating pile of trash located in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The GPGP spans 620,000 square miles, which is around three times the size of France. The Ocean Cleanup nonprofit organization reported that the GPGP consists of 180 times more plastic than ocean life, and its 1.8 trillion pieces of garbage result in the area having 250 pieces of plastic for every person in the world.

Before this year, marine biologists commonly believed that the GPGP was unable to sustain life for many reasons. The Plastic Collective named some of these factors: deadly microplastics are ingested by animals; garbage pieces can carry species into other locations, disrupting ecosystems; animals can get entangled in the debris and die; and garbage can destroy habitats entirely.

But, in April, scientists discovered that a coastal ecosystem was now alive and thriving in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This finding was published in the Nature Ecology and Evolution journal, and it explained that 484 marine invertebrates that belong to 46 different species were living in the GPGP. The majority of these creatures would typically be found in coastal areas.

The team of scientists found this data by inspecting 105 plastic pieces in the GPGP and checking for the presence of marine invertebrate organisms. Their results helped them determine that the plastic—which can take hundreds of years to decompose—allows creatures to have more time to live and reproduce for generations, forming complex ecosystems on the garbage. Furthermore, the plastic is creating new opportunities for certain types of species to live in floating ecosystems, as organic materials would decompose too quickly for them to thrive in the open ocean. 

While the team was able to make these deductions from facts, there were still unanswered questions about the abundance of creatures from coastal areas.

Linsey Haram, a science fellow at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the lead author of the study, analyzed the unanticipated results of the experiments regarding coastal invertebrates.

“It was surprising to see how frequent the coastal species were. They were on 70 percent of the debris that we found. Quite a large percentage of the diversity that we found were coastal species and not the native pelagic open ocean species that we were largely expecting to find,” Haram said.

Other than the coastal invertebrates, the scientists still discovered open ocean species. The two groups tended to coexist together in communities on the garbage, interacting with each other. The team hypothesized that these creatures were displaying interactions centered around living space and the food chain relationship between predators and prey.

Haram noted that the relationship between the coastal invertebrates and the open ocean species could be explored further to understand the ecosystems in the GPGP.

“On two-thirds of the debris, we found both communities together. There’s likely competition for space because space is at a premium in the open ocean; there’s likely competition for food resources—but they may also be eating each other. It’s hard to know exactly what’s going on, but we have seen evidence of some of the coastal anemones eating open ocean species, so we know there is some predation going on between the two communities,” Haram said.

Haram and the team of scientists have continued to study the ecosystems in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to advance their comprehension of how these creatures arrive at the location and thrive for years. The scientists hope that this study will shed light on how ecosystems function in the ocean, especially with environmental factors such as the garbage patch.