Kain Elizabeth C, Lavers Jennifer L, Berg Carl J, Raine André F, Bond Alexander L
Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project, 3900 Hanapepe Rd, Hanapepe, HI, 96716, USA.
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, 20 Castray Esplanade, Battery Point, Tasmania, 7004, Australia.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2016 Dec;23(23):23951-23958. doi: 10.1007/s11356-016-7613-1. Epub 2016 Sep 15.
The ingestion of plastic by seabirds has been used as an indicator of pollution in the marine environment. On Kaua'i, HI, USA, 50.0 % of Newell's (Puffinus newelli) and 76.9 % of wedge-tailed shearwater (Ardenna pacifica) fledglings necropsied during 2007-2014 contained plastic items in their digestive tract, while 42.1 % of adult wedge-tailed shearwaters had ingested plastic. For both species, the frequency of plastic ingestion has increased since the 1980s with some evidence that the mass and the number of items ingested per bird have also increased. The color of plastic ingested by the shearwaters was assessed relative to beach-washed plastics by using Jaccard's index (where J = 1 complete similarity). The color (J = 0.65-0.68) of items ingested by both species, and the type ingested by wedge-tailed shearwaters (J = 0.85-0.87), overlapped with plastic available in the local environment indicating moderate selection for plastic color and type. This study has shown that the Hawaiian populations of shearwaters, like many seabird species, provide useful but worrying insights into plastic pollution and the health of our oceans.
海鸟吞食塑料已被用作海洋环境污染的一个指标。在美国夏威夷考艾岛，2007年至2014年期间接受尸检的纽厄尔氏鸬鹚（Puffinus newelli）雏鸟中有50.0%、楔尾鹱（Ardenna pacifica）雏鸟中有76.9%的消化道中含有塑料制品，而成年楔尾鹱中有42.1%吞食过塑料。对于这两个物种来说，自20世纪80年代以来，塑料吞食频率一直在增加，有证据表明每只鸟吞食的塑料质量和数量也有所增加。通过使用杰卡德指数（其中J = 1表示完全相似），评估了楔尾鹱吞食的塑料颜色与海滩冲刷上来的塑料的关系。两个物种吞食的物品颜色（J = 0.65 - 0.68）以及楔尾鹱吞食的类型（J = 0.85 - 0.87）与当地环境中可得的塑料有重叠，这表明对塑料颜色和类型有一定程度的选择。这项研究表明，夏威夷的楔尾鹱种群，与许多海鸟物种一样，为塑料污染和我们海洋的健康状况提供了有用但令人担忧的见解。
