Nature Communications (Mar 2020)

Estimating the size distribution of plastics ingested by animals

  • Ifan B. Jâms,
  • Fredric M. Windsor,
  • Thomas Poudevigne-Durance,
  • Steve J. Ormerod,
  • Isabelle Durance

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15406-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 7

Abstract

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Plastic pollution is an escalating problem and there is a need to predict the range of plastic sizes that an organism of interest could feasibly ingest. Here the authors use previously published data to develop an allometric equation for plastic size ingested as a function of animal body size, a relationship which could help predict risk of plastic introduction into food webs.