Another #AdriftLab #seabird paper has been featured in #AudubonMagazine (this important #research from #Australia will now reach an even broader audience in the USA) 🥳 - congrats to Hayley (our student) and team 👏

“a word can only do so much. Ultimately, reducing the world’s reliance on #plastic is the preventive treatment for #plasticosis”

#LordHoweIsland #PlasticPollution #SublethalEffects #PlasticIngestion @SeabirdSentinel @TheLabAndField https://www.audubon.org/news/plastic-pollution-so-pervasive-its-causing-new-disease-seabirds

Today our beautiful, broken #AdriftLab team removed >400 #plastics from one baby #seabird and >50g from another. It’s been rough (!), proud of how we’ve rallied around one another 💔🐦♻️

#PlasticIsNotADistraction #Ecogrief #LordHoweIsland #PollutionIsADesignChoice #PlasticPollution #shearwaters #BiodiversityCrisis #SentinelSpecies #Plasticingestion
@SeabirdSentinel @TheLabAndField

#AdriftLab at their absolute best: pretending to be #shearwaters during a team photo. @TheLabAndField is a road kill bird, @SeabirdSentinel is regurgitating, the rest is anyones guess 🤣🤣

Massive thanks to photographer extraordinaire Justin for capturing this image for us and being an all-round legend 🙏💙📸

#DreamTeam #GoodScienceGoodPeople #LordHoweIsland #seabirds #PlasticPollution #FieldWork

TWO tile spacers in the stomach of the same baby #seabird 🐦🥺
#PlasticPollution #shearwater #LordHoweIsland #AdriftLab

Today #AdriftLab found a #shearwater entangled in recreational fishing gear (line & hook visible in the top left corner). The line caused serious injury to the wing, leg and foot. We’re sad to say, the bird is no longer alive. Please fish much more carefully and responsibly, what you leave behind causes great suffering and ends the lives of others who are innocent and don’t have a voice
#FishingInteraction #entanglement #SentinelSpecies #seabird #LordHoweIsland @SeabirdSentinel @TheLabAndField

Best hairdo award goes to…this little dude! Tonight he made his first flight into the big blue, never having actually seen the ocean before! His pink toes won’t touch dry land again for FIVE YEARS, and in that time, he’ll probably cover close to 50,000 km! Safe travels, gorgeous one, the #AdriftLab team are already talking about the day we’ll see you again 🌊🪶💗
#Shearwaters #SeabirdSaturday #seabird #LordHoweIsland #Adorable #FieldWork #conservation #PlasticPollution #PlasticIngestion @TheLabAndField @SeabirdSentinel

What a magical day with friends, #mountains, stunning ocean 🌊 , and thousands of #seabirds overhead! #LordHoweIsland #ProvidencePetrels @TheLabAndField @SeabirdSentinel

✨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 #LongTermMonitoring

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
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389422019112

Big thanks to Gabbi for providing the photo used in Figure 1 and to @nhm_london and Esperance Tjaltjraak Native Title Aboriginal Corporation for their endless support!! 🙏 @SeabirdSentinel @TheLabAndField

🎉New @AdriftLab paper 🎉 in ICES Journal of Marine Science!! Download it for free (#OpenAccess) HERE ➡️ https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/advance-article/doi/10.1093/icesjms/fsad048/7083385

So, what did we find? Well, in young #seabirds, body mass influences the likelihood of survival in the critical period between nest departure & recruitment to the breeding population. For this study, we measured #shearwater chicks to determine how body condition changed over 13 years (an incredible long-term dataset!).

During 2010–2022, we found 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 📏📉😢

In the 1st photo, a healthy chick is shown on the LEFT while an undersized chick which we more commonly observed is shown on the RIGHT.

Overall, the number of chicks fledging (leaving the nest) at <400 g has increased sharply in recent years (see photo 2), meaning significant numbers of birds are unlikely to survive after departing the island

This paper highlights the value of #LongTermMonitoring & critical role #philanthropy has played: literally NONE of this world-class science would have been possible without support from generous donors, especially Detached Hobart - we are forever grateful! 😍🐦💙 Huge thanks to Justin Gilligan for providing the stunning (yet sad) 📸, they made all the difference to this paper! Finally, a massive thanks to @nhmscience and Esperance Tjaltjraak for supporting our team 🙏

#AdriftLab #Morphometrics #LordHoweIsland #OceanHealth #BioIndicator #TippingPoint #BiodiversityCrisis #Sentinel @TheLabAndField

"Lord Howe Island remains optimistic that it can eradicate the plant pathogen Myrtle Rust which has the potential to devastate the Island’s ecosystems.

Last week the Lord Howe Island Board announced the temporary closure of about 70% of the island to all non-essential visitors, due to the discovery of myrtle rust (Austropuccinia psidii)."

https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/fungus-myrtle-rust-lord-howe-island/

#LordHoweIsland #Environment #Fungus #Plants

✨NEW PAPER✨Imagine you’ve got a piece of plastic stuck in your stomach - stabbing, poking, and prodding constantly. Besides being incredibly uncomfortable, what would that do to your delicate internal tissues?
One of our #AdriftLab Honours students (Hayley) has just published her first, first-author paper in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, investigating the effect that #PlasticIngestion has on the formation of scar tissue within the stomach of #seabirds from #LordHoweIsland. While scar tissue formation is a natural part of the healing process, excessive scarring can impact tissue function and cause disease, known as #fibrosis #OpenAccess paper here ➡️ sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
We found plastic ingestion was significantly related to severe, organ-wide scar tissue formation in the stomach, with some birds exhibiting a near-complete loss of tissue structure (photo panel on LEFT: collagen/scar tissue has stained blue). This is the first time plastic-related scar tissue formation has been documented in wild animals, but what we could see was so severe that it also led us to propose a new disease, #Plasticosis – fibrosis as a result of plastic.
As >1200 species are already documented to ingest plastic across both aquatic and terrestrial environments (including us!), our findings have major implications.
#WomenInSTEM #seabirds #PlasticPollution #SubLethalEffects #Microplastics #Nanoplastics #silicosis @SeabirdSentinel @TheLabAndField

✨New paper alert✨Imagine you’ve got a piece of plastic stuck in your stomach - stabbing, poking, and prodding constantly. Besides being incredibly uncomfortable, what would that do to your delicate internal tissues?

One of our #AdriftLab Honours students (Hayley) has just published her first, first-author paper in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, investigating the effect that #PlasticIngestion has on the formation of scar tissue within the stomach of #seabirds from #LordHoweIsland. While scar tissue formation is a natural part of the healing process, excessive scarring can impact tissue function and cause disease, known as #fibrosis #OpenAccess paper here ➡️ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304389423003722

We found plastic ingestion was significantly related to severe, organ-wide scar tissue formation in the stomach, with some birds exhibiting a near-complete loss of tissue structure (photo panel on LEFT: collagen/scar tissue has stained blue). This is the first time plastic-related scar tissue formation has been documented in wild animals, but what we could see was so severe that it also led us to propose a new disease, #Plasticosis – fibrosis as a result of plastic.

As >1200 species are already documented to ingest plastic across both aquatic and terrestrial environments (including us!), our findings have major implications.
#WomenInSTEM #seabirds #PlasticPollution #SubLethalEffects #Microplastics #Nanoplastics #silicosis

🎉BIG CONGRATS🎉 to #AdriftLab PhD candidate Alix - today she aced her Confirmation of Candidature exam - whoop whoop 🙌 Alix delivered her seminar on how #nanoplastics affect #wildlife health & answered all the tough examiner questions with professionalism and grace 🤩 Amazing project, fantastic field site and team - can’t wait to be reunited on #LordHoweIsland soon!! 🐦🏝💙

Now, to submit chapter one - a brilliantly written perspectives piece on the need for more #InterdisciplinaryScience to accelerate the pace and depth of #PlasticPollution research

#GoodScienceGoodPeople #SublethalEffects #seabirds #microplastics #PlasticIngestion @SeabirdSentinel @TheLabAndField

At #AdriftLab, we’ve been fortunate to work alongside INCREDIBLE folks who help us tell the #shearwater’s story on #LordHoweIsland. From jewellery makers to poets to champion swimmers, we are in awe of the kindness of others, and their dedication to #OceanConservation.

In 2022, we were blessed to work with internationally renowned #photojournalist Justin Gilligan who took these ⬇️ stunning photos of our team, the birds, and the impact of #PlasticIngestion (📸 credit: Justin).

Justin’s photos, and words written by Karen McGee, have been featured in #AustralianGeographic “A year in the field: AG photographers on assignment in 2022”. Check out our brilliant story (and others too!!) 🤩 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2022/12/a-year-in-the-field-ag-photographers-on-assignment-in-2022/?fbclid=PAAaYL9fTOMl4ZgI9QgNHP_7CDMlghj-f4EWli1UsfdlLn2-hyq8K3AdbYijM