ABSTRACT
Microplastics are increasingly pervasive pollutants, particularly abundant in the neuston where they drift with currents. We assessed dietary microplastic ingestion in the Mediterranean storm petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus melitensis), a small pelagic seabird that forages on plankton and inhabit the Mediterranean sea, one of the most polluted seas worldwide. We collected spontaneous regurgitates from 30 chick-rearing individuals and used GPS tracking data from 7 additional individuals to locate foraging areas. Birds foraged in pelagic areas characterized by water stirring and mixing, and regurgitates from 14 individuals (i.e. 45 %) contained microplastics. Fibers were the dominant shape (56 %), with polyester, polyethylene and nylon being the most frequent polymers. Our findings highlight the potential sensitivity of this species of conservation interest to plastic pollution and suggest that storm petrel regurgitates can be a valuable matrix to investigate microplastic ingestion in planktonic foragers, providing a characterization of spatio-temporal patterns of microplastic exposure in pelagic environments.
Subject(s)
Microplastics , Water Pollutants, Chemical , Animals , Birds , Eating , Environmental Monitoring , Humans , Mediterranean Sea , Plankton , Plastics , Water Pollutants, Chemical/analysisABSTRACT
Paradoxornis webbianus and Paradoxornis alphonsianus naturally occur in South-East Asia. Due to a recent introduction, a mixed population currently occurs in northern Italy. A preliminary phylogeographic analysis using samples from Italy and China found little genetic differentiation between the two taxa and revealed the existence of two molecular lineages, sympatric in some part of China, that do not correspond to the morphological classification. Possible taxonomic changes and preliminary inferences on the relationships between Chinese and the Italian populations and on the likely provenance of the founders introduced in Italy are also discussed.