Mission Clean Beaches Inc., 1253 Haulover St., Palm Bay, FL 32908, USA.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, 1105 Southwest Williston Road, Gainesville, FL 32601, USA.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2021 Jun;167:112363. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112363. Epub 2021 Apr 22.
We studied marine litter ingestion in 380 neonate sea turtles that washed ashore dead onto Florida's central Atlantic coast (USA) following onshore winds. Our sample of "washbacks" included 284 loggerheads (Caretta caretta), 95 green turtles (Chelonia mydas), and one hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata). Of these, 78.7% had ingested plastics and 45.3% had ingested tar. There was a significant relationship between turtles' carapace length and total mass of ingested plastic. Ingested plastics included microplastics (<5 mm) and larger sizes up to 25% of carapace length. Washbacks' body condition indices were significantly poorer than condition indices of wild turtles captured at sea. Washbacks showed a negative association between plastic load and body condition index, evidence that high plastic loads resulted in diminished nutrition, with possible effects on somatic growth, stage duration, and survivorship. Evidence points to plastics ingestion being an important source of population-level effects in neonate sea turtles.
我们研究了在佛罗里达州大西洋中部海岸（美国），因向岸风而死亡冲上海滩的 380 只新生海龟的海洋垃圾摄入情况。我们的“冲上岸海龟”样本包括 284 只红海龟（Caretta caretta）、95 只绿海龟（Chelonia mydas）和 1 只玳瑁（Eretmochelys imbricata）。其中，78.7%的海龟摄入了塑料，45.3%的海龟摄入了焦油。海龟的甲壳长度和摄入的塑料总量之间存在显著关系。摄入的塑料包括微塑料（<5 毫米）和更大尺寸的塑料，最大可达甲壳长度的 25%。冲上岸海龟的身体状况指数明显差于在海上捕获的野生海龟的状况指数。冲上岸海龟的塑料负荷与身体状况指数呈负相关，这表明高塑料负荷导致营养不足，可能对躯体生长、阶段持续时间和存活率产生影响。有证据表明，塑料摄入是影响新生海龟种群水平的一个重要因素。
