Microplastic abundance in gull nests in relation to urbanization
0106 biological sciences
Jamaica
Microplastics
Urbanization
15. Life on land
01 natural sciences
Charadriiformes
Massachusetts
New England
11. Sustainability
Animals
Humans
New York City
14. Life underwater
Plastics
Ecosystem
Environmental Monitoring
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
DOI:
10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112058
Publication Date:
2021-01-27T22:57:53Z
AUTHORS (4)
ABSTRACT
Human activity and urbanization are having profound effects on natural landscapes and ecosystems. The presence and persistence of human-made materials such as microplastics can have major impacts on the health of organisms in both marine and terrestrial environments. We quantified microplastics in herring gull (Larus argentatus) and great black-backed gull (Larus marinus) nests at three colonies in the northeast United States that varied in their degree of urbanization: Jamaica Bay (JB) in New York City, Youngs Island (YI) on Long Island, New York, and Tuckernuck Island (TN) in Massachusetts. Nests in urban colonies contained a higher proportion of microplastics than those in the more remote colony. Our results link urbanization with microplastic accumulation in coastal environments and suggest that assessing microplastics in seabird nests could provide a means of evaluating microplastics encountered by seabirds and other coastal marine animals.
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