The effects of microplastics on crop variation depend on polymer types and their interactions with soil nutrient availability and weed competition

Microplastics pollution of agricultural soil is a global environmental concern because of its potential risk to food security and human health. Although many studies have tested the direct effects of microplastics on growth of Eruca sativa Mill., little is known about whether these effects are regulated by fertilization and weed competition in field management practices.
Here, we performed a greenhouse experiment growing E. sativa as target species in a three-factorial design with two levels of fertilization (low versus. high), two levels of weed competition treatments (weed competition versus no weed competition) and five levels of microplastic treatments (no microplastics, Polybutylene adipateco-terephthalate [PBAT], Polybutylene succinate [PBS], Polycaprolactone [PCL] or Polypropylene [PP]).
Compared to the soil without microplastics, PBS and PCL reduced aboveground biomass and leaf number of the E. sativa. PBS also resulted in increased root allocation and thicker roots in E. sativa..., greenhouse experiment, , # The effects of microplastics on crop variation depend on polymer types and their interactions with soil nutrient availability and weed competition

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.nzs7h44z0](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.nzs7h44z0)

This file contains data of plant biomass, leaves number, root mass fraction(RMF) and specific root length(SRL).In this study, the presence of NA values in the dataset is primarily due to two reasons. Firstly, the death of four plants during the experimental process meant that we were unable to collect data from these plants, resulting in a total reduction from the expected 200 plants to 196 plants. Secondly, regarding the underground biomass data, we only harvested the roots of singly cultivated plants of the mustard species, as it was challenging to separate the intertwined roots in the case of co-cultivation, leading to NA values for this particular data point.

* Shoot_Target: Above-ground biomass of *E. sativa (g)*
* RMF_Target: Root mass fraction o...