AI Article Synopsis
- * A study at a yellow-legged gull colony in southern France revealed that 83.9% of analyzed nest pellets contained plastic, predominantly made of polyethylene sheets.
- * The research indicated that gulls might reduce plastic ingestion when feeding their chicks, adjusting their foraging habits for safer, more nutritious food around the hatching period.
Article Abstract
Gulls can be particularly vulnerable to ingesting plastics when using anthropogenic food sources, with potential consequences for survival and reproductive success. Although birds are known to switch foraging habitats over the breeding season to provide higher quality food for chick provisioning, it is unclear what this means regarding the ingestion of plastics. Here, we tested whether breeding gulls decrease the amount of plastic ingested during reproduction by collecting pellets from a series of monitored nests at a large yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis) colony in southern France. We found at least one plastic item in 83.9 % of the analyzed pellets, with the most abundant plastic type being polyethylene-based sheet plastic. As predicted, we found a slight decrease in the number of plastic items in pellets at chick hatching. These results suggest that gulls, like other birds, may adjust foraging habits to provide more digestible, less risky, food to chicks.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2022.114483 | DOI Listing |
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