Beached seabirds as plastic biomonitors in Brazil from the Beach Monitoring Project of the Santos Basin (PMP-BS).

Bioindicator species are useful to monitor wildlife exposure to plastic pollution, and responses to plastic leakage and policy interventions. Here we explore the biomonitoring potential of different seabird and shorebirds species across six years of monitoring in Brazil. Using the necropsy stranding database of the Beach Monitoring Project of the Santos Basin (PMP-BS), we evaluated i) the frequency of birds-plastic interactions in Brazil; ii) whether plastic interactions have changed through time and in different coastal regions; and iii) potential bioindicators for monitoring the exposure of seabirds to plastic in the nearshore South Atlantic Ocean.