Effectiveness of emetics to study plastic ingestion by Leach's Storm-petrels (Oceanodroma leucorhoa)
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...
| Published in: | Marine Pollution Bulletin |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2013
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://pure.uhi.ac.uk/en/publications/40cec598-72b7-4f24-89ad-3535c47768ad https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2013.02.030 http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84877832203&partnerID=8YFLogxK http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84877832203&partnerID=8YFLogxK |
| Summary: | 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. |
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