PANIC is a project funded through FIS3 (Fondo Italiano per la Scienza) as a Starting Grant (€ 1.6M; PI: Veronica Nava) that will investigate the role of plastics in lake ecosystems. 

Despite being primarily composed of carbon, plastics are still absent from the ‘active pipes’ model of lakes, which describes carbon transformation, degradation, and emission pathway.

PANIC will investigate:

• How different types of plastics release carbon, in what forms, and with what reactivity.

• How these processes influence microbial activity.

• How these effects propagate to biodiversity, aquatic metabolism, and greenhouse gas emissions across lakes with diverse characteristics.

By embedding plastics into carbon cycling models, this project will redefine our understanding of their role in lake metabolism and demonstrate why plastics must be considered a fundamental, long-term driver of aquatic ecosystem dynamics.