These Critters Call The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Home

For this second installment of the Sea Camp https://www.npr.org/series/g-s1-75877/short-wave-sea-camp series, we explore the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It's the largest of five gigantic garbage patches in the sea. These patches hang out at the nexus of the world's ocean currents, changing shape with the waves. These areas were long thought to have been uninhabited, the plastics and fishing gear too harmful to marine life. But researchers have uncovered a whole ecosystem of life in this largest collection of trash. Today, with the help of marine biologist Fiona Chong, we meet the tiny marine life that calls this place home. Also, exciting news!! WE HAVE A NEWSLETTER! It lets you go even deeper with the marine research each week of Sea Camp. Sign up here! https://www.npr.org/newsletter/sea-camp?utm_source=feeddescription Interested in hearing more sea stories? Tell us by emailing [email protected] mailto:[email protected]! Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave http://plus.npr.org/shortwave. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This message comes from Doppel. Social engineering attacks come in disguise, but Doppel sees through them. The Agentic platform shuts down threats, turns employees into first line defenders, and more. Learn more at D-O-P-P-E-L dot com.

• 0:16Emily Kwong?

  You're listening to Short Wave from NPR.

• 0:21Regina Barber?

  Hey, Short Wavers. It's Regina Barber.

• 0:23Emily Kwong?

  And Emily Kwong.

• 0:24Regina Barber?

  Back with our second episode in our summer series, Sea Camp. OK, Em, last week, we talked with our producer Hannah Chin about the interface of air and water. What do we have for today? Like, where are we going?

• 0:36Emily Kwong?

  We're staying in the same place. We're just going to linger at the surface of the ocean a bit longer. But I wanted to visit one very famous type of ecosystem full of biodiversity and richness.

• 0:46Regina Barber?

  OK, where is that?

• 0:47Emily Kwong?

  I am talking about a garbage patch.

• 0:54Emily Kwong?

  Trash as far as the eye can see. Garbage floating for miles in the ocean. It's an image you've probably seen pictures of, affixed to an article about ocean pollution or climate change. It's an image most people turn away from, but not marine biologist Fiona Chong.

• 1:11Speaker 03

  A garbage patch is a floating collection of plastic debris that came from land but has ended up in the oceans. And the plastic debris and the trash is carried there from land into the oceans by wind and ocean currents. And they kind of congregate there and they swirl around.

• 1:37Emily Kwong?

  Fiona has stared into the soul of oceanic garbage more than most people as a PhD student at the University of Hull in the UK. Now, garbage patches circulate around five different ocean gyres, or huge rotating currents.

• 1:53Emily Kwong?

  Think water going around in a bathtub drain, except, of course, the water never drains. There's one in the Indian Ocean, two in the Atlantic Ocean, and two in the Pacific Ocean. It's like a floating soup, made up of fishing nets, garbage, and peppered with microplastics. And the biggest one is the North Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  Researchers estimate that it spans 1.6 million kilometers squared. Whenever somebody mentions, you know, a number like this, I struggle to picture it. But what I found useful was that people said that it's two times the size of Texas and three times the size of France.

• 2:33Emily Kwong?

  A whole country of garbage, just swirling around in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California. Fiona and a team of scientists have been studying, not the trash, but the floating organisms called newton, who, in spite of it all, call the trash pile home. In their paper, they detail interesting creatures like the porpita, a bright blue relative of the jellyfish.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  It is really a floating circular disk on the ocean surface. And they also have tentacles to catch things like plankton and crustaceans that they eat.

• 3:07Emily Kwong?

  It's a vibrant and thriving ecosystem. And it's a discovery that complicates our understanding of ocean plastic. On the one hand, pollution is clearly harmful for wildlife. Plastic ensnares marine mammals, poisons fish. But on the other hand, garbage patches have become habitats.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  So if we're getting really good and maybe indiscriminate in the way that we're cleaning it up, then you also risk to remove these host systems that has its own food web and further extensions from the food web to other ecosystems, too.

• 3:44Emily Kwong?

  Today on the show, a look at the life in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and what's at stake for the local marine life when humans try to clean up their mess. I'm Emily Kwong, and you're listening to Short Wave from NPR.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.

• 4:11Speaker 04

  This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. One subscription that does it all. Personalized AI and premium business versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Drive and more. Try it free for 14 days at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  This message comes from Mint Mobile. While others have been hiking your bill, Mint Mobile has kept their wireless plans starting at $15 a month. Switch to Mint Mobile and get three months of premium wireless service for $15 a month. Go to mintmobile.com/switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. New customer offer first three months only, then full-price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  This message comes from Bowlin Branch. Change the way you sleep with soft, 100% organic cotton bedding from Bowlin Branch. Designed to help you fall asleep faster and never sleep hot, while wrapped in luxurious comfort, airy blankets, cloud-like duvets and breathable sheets. Experience pure comfort and feel your bedding get softer with every wash. Discover the difference with 15% off your first order at bowlinbranch.com with code NPR. Exclusions apply. See site for details.

• 5:26Emily Kwong?

  So I want to talk a little bit about how scientists like yourself and your team of collaborators have identified a whole host of life in the North Pacific Garbage Patch, a whole ecosystem, really. What are some of the species that you've found there?

• 5:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, so we'll start with the ones that we've seen quite a lot of. So we've got this organism called the by-the-wind sailor, Valela Valela.

• 5:51Emily Kwong?

  Valela Valela, mhm.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's quite satisfying to say.

• 5:55Emily Kwong?

  Mhm.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  It's this floating jellyfish-like creature, but it's not a jellyfish. It's a hydroid. That's blue in color with a sail.

• 6:07Emily Kwong?

  Ooh.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  Floating above the surface. And it catches the wind and it therefore can move following the wind and quite far as a result. So. Yeah, they're translucent, looking a bit of blue with pentacles underneath them to catch the food and the sail above to catch the wind. Yeah.

• 6:31Emily Kwong?

  Yeah, I'm looking at this um this organism and it does, it it looks like a little boat with a sail.

• 6:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:38Emily Kwong?

  Popping up.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 6:40Emily Kwong?

  But it's all looks, it looks all very squishy and soft.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  It is squishy and soft um.

• 6:45Emily Kwong?

  Have you poked it?

• 6:46Speaker 03

  I have. Actually, in my experience, um I've found them on the beaches because they get washed ashore because, you know, they follow the wind.

• 6:55Emily Kwong?

  What else is there?

• 6:57Speaker 03

  What else is there? So another one that we see a lot of is um porpita, what we call blue button. So they're very closely related to baileyla. So it's also a hyoid and it is really a floating circular disc on the ocean surface. And they also have tentacles to catch um things like plankton and crustaceans that they eat. And very interestingly with porpita, there's been observations where they have created a symbiosis, like a partnership with small juvenile fish. In this case, that means the small fish is hiding under this porpita. Imagine that you've got like a little umbrella on top of your head at all times.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  Um and that's probably because the porpita has stinging tentacles which protect the fish from anything that might come at it. And all of this is happening in a very small scale, like porpita are mostly centimeters in diameter. And they've even um shown that if you remove the porpita from the fish, it would be stressed. And then when they gave the the porpita partner back, they were much happier. And they were also shown to, you know, actually be able to tell which was their porpita. So they, the scientists introduced other porpita to that fish that they got. And they didn't want to go to that.

• 8:24Emily Kwong?

  The little fish were like, that's not my porpita. I want my porpita.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  Yeah. Basically, um, which is amazing.

• 8:32Emily Kwong?

  I mean, it's it's not only a pretty menagerie, but what is also true is that it's a food web. Like, certain creatures are eating other creatures. Who eats who in the North Pacific garbage patch?

• 8:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the gentilus snail is actually a predator. So it predates on the phalela that I've mentioned, as well as the blue button. Um, so these are new stone species, they actually can't swim and they float with the currents and the wind. So they really rely on there being a high concentration of this whole system so that they could eat each other. Another really charismatic, pretty new stone that's a predator is um the claucus, Atlanticus, which is the blue sea dragon. Um, the blue sea dragon is uh actually a slug. Um, and they also prey on other new stone.

• 9:26Speaker 03

  And in particular, the glaucus actually shows a preference for the manor war. But they would also eat phalela and popita. And so actually, within the surface new stone ecosystem, it is a food web on its own. Um, somewhat self-sustaining. But um, we also know that other non-new stone organisms eat the new stone, such as um the ocean sunfish. Um, we know that seabirds come in and also eat the surface organisms as well as sea turtles.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  So um, they definitely are preyed on by much bigger things as well as being eaten by each other within the new stone ecosystem.

• 10:13Emily Kwong?

  Yeah.

• 10:18Emily Kwong?

  There's clearly so much life on this garbage patch, like not even a little bit, but a lot. And and one thing that your research found was in looking at the concentrations of or organisms, there were more in the middle than on the edges. Why is that?

• 10:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, the currents really just concentrate them into the middle of the patch where there's a relative kind of stable patch in the middle of the gyre.

• 10:46Emily Kwong?

  And what what difference does that make to the life that lives there? That they're getting closer to each other as the gyre moves in?

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Um, so them being in a higher concentration, you know, allows them to feed. Um, because they actually need to touch each other to eat each other. Um, but also there are evidence of them just being able to, um, you know, spawn.

• 11:11Emily Kwong?

  Right.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  But also they they need to bump into each other to, um, mate.

• 11:16Emily Kwong?

  Fascinating. Wow. So this is a real ecosystem. But let's not forget where it's happening. Of course, it's happening in this garbage patch and and we know how dangerous microplastics and garbage is for bigger marine life, um, for entanglement, uh, animals ingesting garbage. How has this research affected your views on ocean cleanup of the patch?

• 11:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, um, it's definitely not a good thing. It is a shame that us humans, you know, have such large impacts in the ocean that, you know, our footprint is so far out. Um, you know, plastic being in the patch could be harmful for other marine organisms. Like we've mentioned, we have sea turtles, sea birds, and the sunfish coming in, eating our new system ecosystem. So when they take these mouthfuls, they would ingest plastics too, like you've said. So if we're getting really good and maybe indiscriminate in the way that we're cleaning it up,

• 12:22Speaker 03

  then you also risk to remove these whole systems that has its own food web and further extensions um, from the food web to other ecosystems too. Um, which suggests to me and my colleagues that there needs to be better ways of cleaning up the ocean. Or better yet, we just should should curb it at the source. We shouldn't let the plastic and the plastic debris and the trash go out at all. That is probably quite difficult, but we should try it.

• 13:04Emily Kwong?

  If the whole world could listen to you talk about this garbage patch, what would be your recommendation?

• 13:11Speaker 03

  So I think on a day-to-day basis, you could definitely be more aware of your footprint, your own trash.

• 13:21Speaker 03

  And a better waste management system needs to be in place for countries that are really big polluters. If there were any kind of cleanup efforts, I really think that they should be closer to shore. I mean, that's probably better because it is on land and closer to us. At least the carbon footprint would then be as high. But again, that probably comes with a lot of other problems, such as there is life in the rivers. And how do you make sure that you can differentiate that from the river trash?

• 13:56Emily Kwong?

  The bycatch problem.

• 13:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. And finally, actually, the fishing industry is a big polluter of the open ocean, the ghost nets. So the fishing nets that are maybe damaged and therefore like just floating in the middle of the sea, those are actually what are found a lot in the middle of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. So they definitely also need to be held accountable.

• 14:27Emily Kwong?

  So changes to the fishing industry, changes to where we prioritize cleanup, and changes to how we dispose of garbage in the first place. Fiona Chong, it's been so good to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on Short Wave.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 14:46Regina Barber?

  Emily, thank you for the story about life forms that live in our trash.

• 14:50Emily Kwong?

  You're welcome, Gina. And you can check out our episode page to see pictures of these truly stunning trash creatures.

• 14:58Regina Barber?

  Shortwaivers, before we head out, we're excited to tell you that we have made a brand-new thing, a special, sparkly C-Camp newsletter.

• 15:07Emily Kwong?

  This is a limited edition newsletter. It's a five-part series. In each issue, we're going to explore a different vertical zone of the ocean, dive into some research, and highlight a cute, quirky, or crucial ocean critter from that zone. And there are pictures.

• 15:21Regina Barber?

  And a game. It's one more way we at Short Wave aim to infuse joy and wonder into your day. Producer Burleigh McCoy has poured her heart and soul into this project, so please, sign up and share it with your friends.

• 15:34Emily Kwong?

  To register, visit npr.org/ccamp and enter your email. You'll start getting newsletters once a week. That link, again, is npr.org/ccamp.

• 15:45Regina Barber?

  This episode was produced by Carly Rubin and Burleigh McCoy. It was edited and fact-checked by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez.

• 15:52Emily Kwong?

  Maggie Luthar and Jimmy Keely were the audio engineers. I'm Emily Kwong.

• 15:56Regina Barber?

  And I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Short Wave and C-Camp from NPR.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.