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Plastic pollution ingestion by marine birds; what we have learned since the 1960s
Dr. Jennifer Provencher Head of the Wildlife Health Unit, Canadian Wildlife Service Environment and Climate Change Canada @jenni_pro Plastics in the Ocean, Brest France, November 2018
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1. Ingestion and accumulation 2. Plastic as a vector for contaminants
3. Birds as a vector for plastics
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Marine birds - importance
Murres Eiders
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Laysan albatross chicks
Chris Jordan
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History of ingested debris in seabirds
Couch (1838) reported part of a candle stick inside the gut of Wilson’s storm-petrel (Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of London)
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History of ingested debris in seabirds and other marine vertebrates
Provencher et al. Analytical Methods 2017
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All industrial pellets and nurdles
Marine debris Industrial plastic All industrial pellets and nurdles User plastic All consumer plastic Endo et al. 2005 20 billion pounds of plastic enter the oceans each year Chris Jordan
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Northern fulmar monitoring in the North Sea
Concern with marine debris 1972 London Dumping Convention 1973/1978 the MARPOL Convention 1992 Oslo and Paris Conventions for the protection of the marine environment of the northeast Atlantic (OSPAR)
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Northern fulmar monitoring in the North Sea
1992 Oslo and Paris Conventions for the protection of the marine environment of the northeast Atlantic (OSPAR) “there should be less than 10% of Northern Fulmars having 0.1 g or more plastic in the stomach in samples of 50–100 beached Fulmars from each of 5 different areas of the North Sea over a period of at least 5 years”
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Variation in plastics ingestion in seabirds over time
Provencher et al. Analytical Methods 2017
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Variation in plastics ingestion in seabirds
across large spatial scales Frequency of occurrence over birds with > 0.1 g of plastics N S N S N S Ecological Quality Objective (EcoQO) target Western North Atlantic Eastern North Atlantic Western North Pacific These are some results from an international collaboration that I initiated and lead that synthesized the information available to date on ingested plastics in marine mega fuana, including using what we know from the northern fulmar, which is the most widely studied species for plastic ingestion. Avery-Gomm et al Marine Pollution Bulletin
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Variation in plastics ingestion in seabirds
by foraging type Foraging strategy is related to plastic ingestion Frequency of occurrence (%) Seabirds at the PLI breeding colony, Nunavut Surface feeders Divers Poon et al Marine Pollution Bulletin
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Variation in plastics ingestion in seabirds
by foraging type Debris ingestion by three sympatric gull species Sahar Seif BSc Honours Seif et al Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology
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Seabirds as bio-vectors of plastic pollution around the marine environment
Accumulated plastics and excreted plastics in fulmars collected by hunters in northern Canada Provencher et al STOTEN
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Plastics as a vector for chemical contaminants in marine ecosystems
Physical effects Blockage False satiation Chemical effects Leaching of plastic additives Concentrating of environmental contaminants Northern Contaminants Program
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Chemical pollution in the marine biota
Do microplastics bioaccumulate? Do microplastics biomagnify? Provencher et al Environmental Reviews
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How the breakdown of plastics types differ
Pieces sorted visually as fragments n=162 Nylon Olefin Polyethylene Provencher et al. In prep
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How do ingested plastics contribute to contaminants burdens in biota?
Concentration of substituted diphenylamine antioxidants (SDPAs) pg/g 90% have ingested plastics 10% have ingested plastics Tell me two things that you notice about this graph. 1) maternal transfer, 2) not a big different between BLKI and NOFU even though they have differences in the plastic ingestion Lu et al. Submitted ES&T
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Trophic transfer of plastic debris
First documented transfer of plastics by prey in marine food webs Arctic skuas Black-legged kittiwakes Northern fulmars Atlantic puffins Sjúrður Hammer PhD Prey This is the first time that we have documented trophic transfer of marine plastics. Plastics Hammer et al Marine Pollution Bulletin
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Trophic Transfer of plastics, what do we know
Few ecosystems have more than a dozen plastics ingestion studies to date The LME of NLFD and the Mediterranean Many LMEs and FAO fishing regions have not been studied Only 5 regional freshwater areas studied to date Provencher et al Environmental Reviews
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Plastic pollution distribution in the global oceans
Gross 2015 Current Biology
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Estimates of plastic pollution
Where we have looked in birds and other vertebrates Priority regions: The offshore areas Western Central Pacific Indian Ocean
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Marine birds - importance
Murres Eiders
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Questions ?
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