Birds of a feather eat plastic together: high levels of plastic ingestion in Great Shearwater adults and juveniles across their annual migratory cycle.

ABSTRACT: Limited work to date has examined plastic ingestion in highly migratory seabirds like Great Shearwaters (Ardenna gravis) across the their entire migratory range, although this species is prone to ingest plastic as a wide-ranging procellariiform. We examined 217 Great Shearwaters obtained from 2008-2019 at multiple locations spanning their yearly migration cycle across the Northwest and South Atlantic to assess accumulation of ingested plastic as well as trends over time and between locations. A total of 2,328 plastic fragments were documented in the ventriculus portion of the gastrointestinal tract, with an average of 9 plastic fragments per bird. The mass, count, and frequency of plastic occurrence (FO) varied by location, with higher plastic burdens but lower FO in South Atlantic

SUBMITTER: Robuck AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9558492 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature