Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, University of Milan, Milano (MI), Italy; Area BIO-AVM, Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, Ozzano dell'Emilia (BO), Italy.
Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, University of Milan, Milano (MI), Italy.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2022 Sep;182:114030. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2022.114030. Epub 2022 Aug 11.
Microplastics are increasingly pervasive pollutants, particularly abundant in the neuston where they drift with currents. We assessed dietary microplastic ingestion in the Mediterranean storm petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus melitensis), a small pelagic seabird that forages on plankton and inhabit the Mediterranean sea, one of the most polluted seas worldwide. We collected spontaneous regurgitates from 30 chick-rearing individuals and used GPS tracking data from 7 additional individuals to locate foraging areas. Birds foraged in pelagic areas characterized by water stirring and mixing, and regurgitates from 14 individuals (i.e. 45 %) contained microplastics. Fibers were the dominant shape (56 %), with polyester, polyethylene and nylon being the most frequent polymers. Our findings highlight the potential sensitivity of this species of conservation interest to plastic pollution and suggest that storm petrel regurgitates can be a valuable matrix to investigate microplastic ingestion in planktonic foragers, providing a characterization of spatio-temporal patterns of microplastic exposure in pelagic environments.
微塑料是一种日益普遍存在的污染物，在海流中漂浮的水层中尤为丰富。我们评估了在地中海暴风鹱（Hydrobates pelagicus melitensis）这种小型远洋海鸟的饮食中摄入微塑料的情况，这种海鸟以浮游生物为食，栖息在地中海，这是世界上污染最严重的海域之一。我们收集了 30 只正在育雏的个体的自发反刍物，并使用来自 7 只额外个体的 GPS 跟踪数据来定位觅食区域。鸟类在以搅动和混合水为特征的远洋区域觅食，14 只个体（即 45%）的反刍物中含有微塑料。纤维是最主要的形状（56%），最常见的聚合物是聚酯、聚乙烯和尼龙。我们的研究结果强调了这种具有保护意义的物种对塑料污染的潜在敏感性，并表明暴风鹱的反刍物可以作为一种有价值的基质，用于研究以浮游生物为食的动物摄入微塑料的情况，从而可以对远洋环境中微塑料暴露的时空模式进行特征描述。
