TY - JOUR
T1 - Effectiveness of emetics to study plastic ingestion by Leach's Storm-petrels (Oceanodroma leucorhoa)
AU - Bond, Alexander L.
AU - Lavers, Jennifer L.
PY - 2013/3/18
Y1 - 2013/3/18
N2 - Most plastic ingestion studies rely on dissection of dead birds, which are found opportunistically, and may be biased. We used Leach's Storm-petrels (Oceanodroma leucorhoa) in Newfoundland to study the effect of dose volume, and the efficacy of emesis using syrup of ipecac as an emetic. Ipecac is a safe method of non-lethally sampling stomach contents, and recovered all ingested plastic. Almost half the storm-petrels sampled had ingested plastic, ranging from 0 to 17 pieces, and weighing 0.2-16.9. mg. Using the Ecological Quality Objective for Northern Fulmars, adjusted for storm-petrels smaller size, 43% exceeded the threshold of 0.0077. g of plastic. Many adult seabirds offload plastic to their offspring, so storm-petrel chicks likely experience a higher plastic burden than their parents. The ability to study plastic ingestion non-lethally allows researchers to move from opportunistic and haphazard sampling to hypothesis-driven studies on a wider range of taxa and age classes.
AB - Most plastic ingestion studies rely on dissection of dead birds, which are found opportunistically, and may be biased. We used Leach's Storm-petrels (Oceanodroma leucorhoa) in Newfoundland to study the effect of dose volume, and the efficacy of emesis using syrup of ipecac as an emetic. Ipecac is a safe method of non-lethally sampling stomach contents, and recovered all ingested plastic. Almost half the storm-petrels sampled had ingested plastic, ranging from 0 to 17 pieces, and weighing 0.2-16.9. mg. Using the Ecological Quality Objective for Northern Fulmars, adjusted for storm-petrels smaller size, 43% exceeded the threshold of 0.0077. g of plastic. Many adult seabirds offload plastic to their offspring, so storm-petrel chicks likely experience a higher plastic burden than their parents. The ability to study plastic ingestion non-lethally allows researchers to move from opportunistic and haphazard sampling to hypothesis-driven studies on a wider range of taxa and age classes.
KW - Ipecac
KW - Leach's Storm-petrel
KW - Oceanodroma leucorhoa
KW - Plastic ingestion
KW - Seabird
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84877832203&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84877832203&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2013.02.030
DO - 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2013.02.030
M3 - Article
C2 - 23507234
AN - SCOPUS:84877832203
SN - 0025-326X
VL - 70
SP - 171
EP - 175
JO - Marine Pollution Bulletin
JF - Marine Pollution Bulletin
IS - 1-2
ER -