Community-wide patterns of plastic ingestion in seabirds breeding at French Frigate Shoals, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

Between 2006 and 2013, we salvaged and necropsied 362 seabird specimens from Tern Island, French Frigate Shoals, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Plastic ingestion occurred in 11 of the 16 species sampled (68.75%), representing four orders, seven families, and five foraging guilds: four plunge-divers,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Marine pollution bulletin Vol. 123; no. 1-2; pp. 269 - 278
Main Authors:	Rapp, Dan C., Youngren, Sarah M., Hartzell, Paula, David Hyrenbach, K.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England Elsevier Ltd 15-10-2017 Elsevier BV
Subjects:	Animals Aquatic birds Birds Birds - physiology Breeding Chicks Conspecifics Divers Eating Environmental Monitoring Forage Foraging Gastrointestinal Contents - chemistry Guilds Hawaii Indicator species Ingestion Islands Juveniles Marine debris Marine fishes Marine pollution North Pacific Ocean Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Plastic ingestion Plastics Plastics - analysis Reproduction Seabird Seabirds Shoals Species Stomach Ventriculus Waste materials Tern Island Plastic ingestion Seabird Indicator species Northwestern Hawaiian Islands North Pacific Ocean Marine debris
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Summary:	Between 2006 and 2013, we salvaged and necropsied 362 seabird specimens from Tern Island, French Frigate Shoals, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Plastic ingestion occurred in 11 of the 16 species sampled (68.75%), representing four orders, seven families, and five foraging guilds: four plunge-divers, two albatrosses, two nocturnal-foraging petrels, two tuna-birds, and one frigatebird. Moreover, we documented the first instance of ingestion in a previously unstudied species: the Brown Booby. Plastic prevalence (percent occurrence) ranged from 0% to 100%, with no significant differences across foraging guilds. However, occurrence was significantly higher in chicks versus adult conspecifics in the Black-footed Albatross, one of the three species where multiple age classes were sampled. While seabirds ingested a variety of plastic (foam, line, sheets), fragments were the most common and numerous type. In albatrosses and storm-petrels, the plastic occurrence in the two stomach chambers (the proventriculus and the ventriculus) was not significantly different. [Display omitted] •Widespread plastic ingestion by seabirds, involving 11 species in seven families and four orders•Albatrosses and nocturnal-feeding petrels had the highest plastic incidence rates (>50%).•Plunge-divers, tuna-birds and frigatebirds ingested plastic at lower rates.•Fragments were the most prevalent and numerous type of ingested plastic.•For albatrosses, plastic incidence and loads were higher in chicks than in adult conspecifics.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0025-326X 1879-3363
DOI:	10.1016/j.marpolbul.2017.08.047