NEW PAPER: Pumice ingestion in seabirds: interannual variation, and relationships with chick growth and plastic ingestion

✨New #AdriftLab paper✨ “Pumice ingestion in #seabirds: interannual variation, and relationships with chick growth and plastic ingestion” 🐦🌋 #OpenAccess (free to download) HERE ➡️ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-023-04203-6

We analysed the amount of ingested #pumice (on LEFT in photo) from 739 Flesh-footed & 173 Wedge-tailed #Shearwaters from #LordHoweIsland during 2011-2022. Pumice mass did not vary over time, except for one higher year for each species (2016 for FFSH & 2014 for WTSH), and there was no effect of pumice mass on chick body size at fledgling.

Our results are consistent with the coexistence over geological time of seabirds and floating pumice & provides further evidence that ingested pumice does not cause #Plasticosis or other harm like #IngestedPlastic does (see links below)

Plastic's one-two punch: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.130117

Plasticosis: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2023.131090

Big thanks to #AdriftLab Honours student, Gabrielle Henderson, for providing the photo used in Figure 1 of the paper and to Natural History Museum and Esperance Tjaltjraak Native Title Aboriginal Corporation for their endless support! 🙏 #LongTermMonitoring