News paper – Seabirds in crisis

♻️NEW PAPER ALERT♻️ Global understanding of #plastics negative consequences has been hampered by relatively basic study design & overly simplistic tools. However, recent whole-of-body studies of #pathology distal from the point of exposure (ie. stomach) have made startling discoveries (eg., earlier this year our team described a new disease called #Plasticosis).

For this new study, we used #proteomics (a powerful diagnostic tool) to investigate the physiological responses of #seabirds to #PlasticIngestion. We found… even in healthy looking birds, the ingestion of plastic was sufficient to drastically change >200 unique #proteins within the #blood. There was also evidence of mass #CellLysis (death) in high-plastic impacted #birds.

Many proteins were downregulated, indicating multi-organ failure that affected the #brain, #kidney & especially #liver. We also recorded significant enrichment of proteins associated with #neurodegenerative #diseases (eg. #Alzheimers) in the birds with high plastic. These proteins play a critical role in the growth/survival of neurons, such as those associated with development of song in birds = likely impacts on #PairBonding & #BreedingSuccess in high plastic birds.

Finally, we detected stomach proteins within the birds’ blood, this demonstrates a breakdown in the stomach’s integrity & aligns with stomach #necrosis reported in one of our earlier studies (one-two punch paper).  So, what’s the take-home message? Despite our study birds appearing healthy, this new #proteome data suggests their health is severely compromised. With >25% of the proteome altered between the low and high plastic impacted seabirds. A great physiological change has occurred…the invisible crisis has been revealed!

The lead author of this paper is one of our brilliant, hard-working PhD students, Alix de Jersey. Publishing a paper like this, in a top-tier journal such as Science Advances, speaks volumes about her ability to undertake high impact research in an organised and collaborative way. CONGRATS DJ, you’re an absolute legend!!

Recent news posts