| Title | Superworms Digest Plastic, with Help from their Bacterial Sidekicks | |
| Date | Thursday May 28 2020, @07:58AM | |
| Author | martyb | |
| Topic | ||
| from the don't-bug-me-while-I'm-eating dept. | ||
Resembling giant mealworms, superworms (Zophobas atratus) are beetle larvae that are often sold in pet stores as feed for reptiles, fish and birds. In addition to their relatively large size (about 2 inches long), these worms have another superpower: They can degrade polystyrene plastic. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology have linked this ability to a strain of bacteria that lives in the larvae's gut.
[...] The team placed 50 superworms in a chamber with polystyrene as their only carbon source, and after 21 days, the worms had consumed about 70% of the plastic. The researchers then isolated a strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria from the gut of the worms and showed that it that could grow directly on the surface of polystyrene and break it down. Finally, they identified an enzyme from the bacteria, called serine hydrolase, that appeared to be responsible for most of the biodegradation.
Journal Reference:
Hong Rae Kim et al. Biodegradation of Polystyrene by Pseudomonas sp. Isolated from the Gut of Superworms (Larvae of Zophobas atratus), Environmental Science & Technology (DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c01495)
Feed the plastic grocery bags to the worms, then feed the worms to the seagulls.
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printed from SoylentNews, Superworms Digest Plastic, with Help from their Bacterial Sidekicks on 2024-04-25 19:51:01