These Critters Call The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Home

Summary

Short Wave Podcast Summary

Episode: These Critters Call The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Home
Release Date: July 14, 2025
Hosts: Emily Kwong and Regina Barber
Guest: Marine Biologist Fiona Chong

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Introduction to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

In the second episode of their summer series, C Camp, hosts Emily Kwong and Regina Barber delve into the enigmatic ecosystem of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Unlike typical portrayals of marine pollution, this episode explores the biodiversity thriving amidst the floating debris.

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Understanding Garbage Patches

Fiona Chong provides a foundational understanding of what constitutes a garbage patch:

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.
(00:47)

The North Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is highlighted as the largest, spanning approximately 1.6 million square kilometers—comparable to "two times the size of Texas and three times the size of France" (Fiona Chong, 02:15).

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A Thriving Marine Ecosystem Amidst Pollution

Contrary to the destructive narrative, Fiona Chong and her research team have discovered a rich ecosystem within the garbage patch, primarily composed of neustonic organisms—creatures that live on the ocean's surface.

1. Valella (Wind Sailor)

   • Described as a "floating jellyfish-like creature," Valella is a hydroid with a bright blue color and a sail that catches the wind, enabling movement across vast ocean areas.
   • Fiona Chong: "It's a hydroid that's blue in color with a sail floating above the surface and it catches the wind and it therefore can move following the wind and quite far as a result."
     (05:27)

2. Popita (Blue Button)

   • Another hydroid, Popita forms floating circular discs equipped with tentacles to capture plankton and crustaceans.
   • Notably, Popita engages in a symbiotic relationship with juvenile fish, offering them protection with its stinging tentacles.
   • Fiona Chong: "With popita, there's been observations where they have created a symbiote, like a partnership with small juvenile fish... the small fish is hiding under this popita... because the popita has stinging tentacles which protect the fish from anything that might come at it."
     (06:43)

3. Gentinus Snail

   • A predator within the neustonic ecosystem, the Gentinus snail preys on species like Valella and Popita.
   • Fiona Chong: "So the gentinus snail is actually a predator, so it predates on the filele that I've mentioned, as well as the blue button."
     (08:30)

4. Glaucus atlanticus (Blue Sea Dragon)

   • A charismatic predator, the Blue Sea Dragon feeds on other neustonic organisms, including the man o' war, Valella, and Popita.
   • Fiona Chong: "Is the Glaucus atlanticus, which is the blue sea dragon. The blue sea dragon is actually a slug and they also prey on other newston."
     (08:30)

The intricate food web within the garbage patch supports not only the neustonic community but also larger marine species such as the ocean sunfish, seabirds, and sea turtles that prey on these surface organisms.

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Concentration of Life in the Center of Gyres

The persistent ocean currents, or gyres, play a crucial role in maintaining the high concentration of life in the middle of the garbage patch.

Fiona Chong:
"So them being in a higher concentration, you know, allows them to feed because they actually need to touch each other to eat each other. But also there are evidence of them just being able to spawn. Right. But also they, they need to bump into each other to mate."
(10:22)

This central concentration facilitates feeding, reproduction, and the sustenance of the local food web, making the middle of the gyre a hotspot for marine life despite the pollution.

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Implications for Ocean Cleanup Efforts

While the presence of a thriving ecosystem is remarkable, Fiona Chong emphasizes the complexities it introduces to cleanup initiatives.

"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."
(11:03)

Key Points:

• Balancing Act: Removing plastics could inadvertently disrupt the existing marine ecosystem.
• Source Control: Prioritizing the prevention of plastic pollution is more effective and less harmful than large-scale cleanup.
• Fishing Industry Accountability: Ghost nets and damaged fishing gear significantly contribute to the debris, necessitating stricter regulations and accountability within the fishing sector.

Fiona Chong:
"Plastic being in the patch could be harmful for other marine organisms... 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..."
(11:27)

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Recommendations for a Sustainable Approach

Fiona Chong offers actionable steps to mitigate the issue:

1. Personal Responsibility: Increase awareness about individual waste footprints.
2. Enhanced Waste Management: Implement better waste disposal systems, especially in major polluting countries.
3. Targeted Cleanup Efforts: Focus cleanup operations closer to land to reduce the carbon footprint and avoid disturbing marine life.
4. Regulating the Fishing Industry: Hold the fishing sector accountable for contributions like ghost nets to prevent further pollution.

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Conclusion

The episode sheds light on the paradoxical existence of a vibrant ecosystem within one of the most polluted marine environments. It underscores the necessity of thoughtful, informed approaches to ocean conservation that honor the delicate balance between removing harmful pollutants and preserving emergent marine life. Fiona Chong's insights call for a collective effort to reduce plastic waste at its source, ensuring healthier oceans for both wildlife and future generations.

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Additional Resources

For visual enthusiasts, the episode's page features stunning photographs of the unique life forms inhabiting the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, further illustrating the episode's themes.

Transcript

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[Emily Kwong]

You're listening to Short Wave from npr.

[Regina Barber]

Hey, shortwavers, it's Regina Barber and Emily Kwong, back with our second episode in our summer series, C Camp. Okay, Em, let's. 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?

[Emily Kwong]

We're staying in the same place. We're just gonna 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.

[Regina Barber]

Okay, where is that?

[Emily Kwong]

I am talking about a garbage patch. 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 affix to an article about ocean pollution or climate change. It's an image most people turn away from, but not marine biologist Fiona Chong.

[Fiona Chong]

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.

[Emily 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. Think water going 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.

[Fiona Chong]

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.

[Emily 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 Newston, who, in spite of it all, call the trash pile home. In their paper, they detail interesting creatures like the porpeda, a bright blue relative of the jellyfish.

[Fiona Chong]

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

[Emily 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.

[Fiona Chong]

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.

[Emily 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.

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[Emily 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 specific garbage patch, a whole ecosystem, really. What are some of the species that you've found there?

[Fiona Chong]

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. Valella. Valella. Valella Valella. Yeah, it's quite satisfying to say 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 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 tentacles underneath them to catch the food and the sail above to catch the wind. Yeah, yeah.

[Emily Kwong]

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

[Fiona Chong]

Yeah.

[Emily Kwong]

Popping up. But it's all looks. It looks all very squishy and soft.

[Fiona Chong]

It is squishy and soft.

[Emily Kwong]

Have you poked it?

[Fiona Chong]

I have, actually. In my experience, I found them on the beaches because they get washed ashore because they, you know, they follow the wind.

[Emily Kwong]

What else is there?

[Fiona Chong]

What else is there? So another one that we see a lot of is popita, what we call blue button. So they're very closely related to vallela. So it's also a hydroid and it is really a floating circular disc on the ocean surface. And they also have tentacles to catch things like plankton and crustaceans that they eat. And very interestingly, with popita, there's been observations where they have created a symbiote, like a partnership with small juvenile fish. In this case, that means the small fish is hiding under this popita. Imagine that you've got, like a little umbrella on top of your head at all times. And that's probably because the popita 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 popita are mostly centimeters in diameter. And they've even shown that if you remove the popita from the fish, it would be stressed. And then when they gave the popita partner back, they were much happier. And they were also shown to, you know, actually be able to tell which was their pupita. So they, the scientists introduced other popita to that fish that they got, and they didn't want to go to the.

[Emily Kwong]

Like, that's not my porpita. I want my porpita.

[Fiona Chong]

Yeah, basically. Which is amazing.

[Emily 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?

[Fiona Chong]

Yeah. So the gentinus snail is actually a predator, so it predates on the filele that I've mentioned, as well as the blue button. So these nuisance 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 stem that's a predator. Is the Glaucus atlanticus, which is the blue sea dragon. The blue sea dragon is actually a slug and they also prey on other newston. And in particular the glaucus actually shows a preference for the man o War. But they would also eat Vallela and Popita. And so actually within the surface newston ecosystem, it is a food web on its own, somewhat self sustaining. But we also know that other non new stone organisms eat the new stone, such as the ocean sunfish. We know that seabirds come in and also eat the surface organisms as well as sea turtles. So they definitely are preyed on by much bigger things as well as being eaten by each other within the nearstone ecosystem. Yeah.

[Emily Kwong]

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

[Fiona Chong]

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.

[Emily 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.

[Fiona Chong]

So them being in a higher concentration, you know, allows them to feed because they actually need to touch each other to eat each other. But also there are evidence of them just being able to, you know, spawn. Right. But also they, they need to bump into each other to mace.

[Emily Kwong]

Fascinating.

[Fiona Chong]

Wow.

[Emily Kwong]

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 we know how dangerous microplastics and garbage is for bigger marine life for entanglement. Animals ingesting garbage. How has this research affected your views on ocean cleanup of the patch?

[Fiona Chong]

Yeah, so 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. You know, plastic being in the patch could be harmful for other marine organisms. Like we've mentioned, we have sea turtles, seabirds, and the sunfish coming in, eating our new stand 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, 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. 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 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.

[Emily Kwong]

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

[Fiona Chong]

So I think on a day to day basis, you could definitely be more aware of your footprint, your own trash. 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 effort, I really think that they should be closer to sharing. I mean, that's probably better because it is on land and closer to us, at least the carbon footprint wouldn't 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 per.

[Emily Kwong]

Se, the bycatch problem.

[Fiona Chong]

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 the great Pacific garbage patch. So yeah, they definitely also need to be held accountable.

[Emily 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 Chung, it's been so good to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on Short Wave.

[Fiona Chong]

Thank you.

[Regina Barber]

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

[Emily Kwong]

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

[Regina Barber]

Short Wavers before we head out, we're excited to tell you that we have made a brand new thing, a special sparkly Sea Camp newsletter.

[Emily 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 and a game.

[Regina Barber]

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.

[Emily Kwong]

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

[Regina Barber]

Episode was produced by Carl Charlie Rubin and Burly McCoy. It was edited and fact checked by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez.

[Emily Kwong]

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

[Regina Barber]

And I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Short Wave and see camp from NPR.

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