Flow is fast down the middle channel and stalls in the tan pools off to the side and behind boulders. Biofilm — the sticky algae/bacteria mat — only builds up where the current isn't scouring it away, so it thickens in the pools and stays thin in the channel. Suspended microplastic drifting near a thick biofilm patch has a real chance of sticking to it each frame; bare rock in the fast channel catches almost nothing. A storm ramps the current up everywhere, scours the biofilm (and whatever it was holding) off the bed, and sends a pulse of remobilized particles rushing downstream before things settle back into slow re-growth.
- Baseline flow speed — how fast water and free particles move downstream outside of a storm.
- Biofilm growth rate — how quickly the mat thickens in low-flow pools.
- Capture affinity — how readily a passing particle sticks once it's near a biofilm patch.
- Storm intensity — how hard the current spikes and how much biofilm gets scoured per storm.