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

Brilliant final seminar by our phenomenal #AdriftLab student, Gabbi and her superb team of supervisors 🥳👏

Gabbi looked at how we can more accurately & efficiently define #plastic #colour. How the #plastics community currently reports colour is hugely problematic (very ad hoc). Stay tuned for our free, user-friendly tool to streamline your #PlasticPollution workflow.

#CellProfiler #TeamWork #ThesisSubmission #MethodDevelopment #StandardiseReporting #PlasticIngestion #Seabirds #BeachPlastic @SeabirdSentinel @TheLabAndField @Jobium

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

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

✨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