Adrift Lab News
All of the latest updates about our research, events and conferences our members attend, and other articles of interest about Adrift Lab.

NEW PAPER: Long-term decline in fledging body condition of seabirds
For this study, we measured shearwater chicks to determine how body condition changed over 13 years (2010–2022). Chick body mass & 3 measures of size (eg. wing length) declined by up to 0.23 mm/yr with body mass declining by 16 g/yr. Due to this decline in body condition, significant numbers are unlikely to survive after departing the island. Full Article »

Adrift Lab's first children's book!!
Adrift Lab team member, Dr Alex Bond, has published his first-ever children's book: "Birds (A Day in the Life)" Full Article »

Plasticosis: silicosis of the sea?
In the past week, our new Plasticosis paper has been featured in 53 news articles from around the world, and 322 folks have already tweeted about the research findings, potentially reaching up to 1.8 million followers on Twitter alone! Full Article »

New paper on the harm plastic causes to wildlife defines a new disease: Plasticosis
Plastic ingestion was directly linked to the presence of severe, organ-wide scar tissue formation in the stomach, with some birds sadly exhibiting a near-complete loss of tissue structure due to plastic ingestion. Our results are the first-time plastic-related scar tissue formation has been documented in wild animals. What we observed was often so severe that it led us to propose a new disease, Plasticosis – fibrosis resulting from plastic exposure Full Article »