World Seabird Conference

First prize poster at the 2nd World Seabird Conference, Cape Town, South Africa, September 2015.

Transcript

1. Plastic in the European Arctic: A quantification & chemical consequences Alice M Trevail1,2, G W Gabrielsen2, S Kühn3 & J A Van Franeker3 1University of Liverpool, UK; 2Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway; 3IMARES, The Netherlands Alice.Trevail@liverpool.ac.uk @AliceTrevail P2-K-197 Increasing risk of Arctic plastic pollution Human impact in the Arctic is mounting 1. Global plastic manufacture is increasing 2. Use of disposable products persists 3. This assessment of marine litter in the Arctic is vital for future environmental management in the region 4. 1 Fulmars as a monitoring tool Northern fulmars, fulmarus glacialis 5:  Oceanic, non-selective feeders  Wide distribution  Mistake plastic items for food: We used standardised methods 5 to quantify stomach plastic in fulmars from Svalbard (2013; n=40)6 and compare results to other monitoring regions 5,7. 2 Stomach plastic contents from one fulmar on Svalbard Results & regional comparison On Svalbard (per ind.): • Avg. = 15.3 pieces • Max. = 200 pieces Plastic on Svalbard is higher than:  Expected trend.  International marine litter targets (OSPAR) 8. Baseline established for monitoring future impact of human activity in the Arctic. 3 Preliminary organic pollutant analysis Tissue contaminant loads of fulmars with high ingested plastic compared to no ingested plastic: Methods: Liver analysed from 18 longline victim birds from Faroe Is. by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry 9. Here, differences were not statistically significant but show potential for further work. Ongoing analysis is focussing on an individual based approach testing a wider array of pollutants both in tissues and in stomach plastics. 4 Conclusions • Economic and ecological costs of plastic pollution are far reaching • Results highlight risk to Arctic marine life & need for regional mitigation of marine litter References 1. Humphries G. & Huettmann F., Diversity and Distributions, 20: 478-490 (2014) 2. Plastics Europe. Plastics – the Facts (2013) [Available at www.plasticseurope.org] 3. WRAP. Carrier bag use figures (2014) [Available at www.wrap.org.uk] 4. Brigham L. Nature, 478: 157 (2011) 5. Van Franeker JA. et al. Environ Pollut, 159: 2609-2615 (2011) 6. Trevail AM. et al. Polar Biol, 38: 975-981 (2015) 7. Kühn S. Van Franeker JA. Mar Pol Bull, 64: 1252-1254 (2012) 8. OSPAR. EcoQO Handbook - handbook for the application of Ecological Quality Objectives in the North Sea (2009) 9. Herzke D. et al. Environ Pollut, 121: 293- 300 (2003) If fulmars were the size of humans… … this is how much stomach plastic you would find in their stomachs: 5 6 Average fulmar stomach content Scaled up to human size: Photos: S Kühn 1cm