About This Project

Many animals, including humans, accidentally eat plastic, but we don't yet understand the impacts of it from either a health or a behavioral perspective. Here, I am studying the diets of seabirds where the amount of plastic in their stomachs is compared to more natural components that they feed on within marine food webs. This will help us better understand whether birds that eat a lot of plastic do so at the expense of more typical food items, shedding light on their behavioral ecology.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Plastic pollution is a huge problem and has been found everywhere we have looked for it. Despite reports of wildlife eating plastic for over 50 years, we still don't understand how it impacts animal populations. Are seabirds eating plastic because we are out-competing with them for fish? It can be hard to link consumed plastics & wildlife health for ethical reasons, so here, I am use birds that died in fishing lines to learn how eating plastics impacts seabirds. An animal's diet impacts its condition, health, & reproductive success. By learning about the role that plastic pollution plays on seabird feeding ecology, we will help to fill a major gap in our understanding of the impacts of plastics on wildlife.

What is the significance of this project?

Plastic pollution occurs in all ecosystems, wildlife, and our own diets! Knowing more about the incidence & abundance of plastics in food webs can help us conserve seabird populations, 90% of which are in decline. While we still are unclear about the specific health impacts of consumed plastics, we know that many compounds in plastics are disruptive to the endocrine system, that is involved in hormone regulation & reproductive success. In this way, funding plastics trophic ecology research will help us to conserve threatened and endangered species & learn about the likely health impacts these contaminants can have on human populations.

What are the goals of the project?

We will compare the abundance and types of plastics consumed by seabirds of various locations and assess the overall condition (health) of those birds. As we work up seabird specimens, we look through all of the major organ systems, including those associated with contaminant filtration (liver and spleen) and those that are involved in reproduction (gonads) & can link their condition and weight to the health of that animal. By comparing these metrics with the plastics data, we can better understand the links between plastic consumption and the health and reproductive ability of wildlife that consume them.