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Ingestion of marine debris plastic by the wedge-tailed shearwater Ardenna pacifica in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

journal contribution
posted on 2017-12-06, 00:00 authored by Krista Verlis, Marnie Campbell, Scott Wilson
We present the first evidence of ingestion of plastic by seabirds from the southern Great Barrier Reef (GBR), Australia. The occurrence of marine debris ingestion in the wedge-tailed shearwater, Ardenna pacifica, on Heron Island was the focus of this preliminary research. Our findings indicate that 21% of surveyed chicks are fed plastic fragments by their parents, having ingested 3.2 fragments on average. The most common colours of ingested plastic fragments were off/white (37.5%) and green (31.3%). Ingested fragments had a mean size of 10.17 ± 4.55 mm and a mean weight of 0.056 ± 0.051 g. Our results indicate that further research is critical to understanding the extent of ingestion, colour preferences, and what impacts ingestion may have on these and other seabird populations in the GBR.

Funding

Category 3 - Industry and Other Research Income

History

Volume

7

Issue

2

Start Page

244

End Page

249

Number of Pages

6

ISSN

0025-326X

Location

Netherlands

Publisher

Elsevier

Language

en-aus

Peer Reviewed

  • Yes

Open Access

  • No

External Author Affiliations

Centre for Environmental Management; School of Medical and Applied Sciences (2013- ); TBA Research Institute;

Era Eligible

  • Yes

Journal

Marine pollution bulletin.