This review quantifies plastic interaction in marine biota. Firstly, entanglement and ingestion records for all marine birds, mammals, turtles, fish, and invertebrate species, are summarized from 747 studies. Marine debris affected 914 species through entanglement and/or ingestion. Ingestion was recorded for 701 species, entanglement was documented for 354 species. Secondly, the frequency of occurrence of ingestion per species (Sp-%FO) was extracted for marine birds, mammals and turtles. Thirdly, for seabird species, average numbers of plastics ingested per individual were determined. Highest Sp-%FO and average number of plastics were found in tubenosed seabirds with 41% of all birds analysed having plastics, on average 9.9 particles per bird. The Sp-%FO and average number of ingested particles is lower for most other species. However, for certain species, ingestion rates of litter are reason for serious concern. Standardized methods are crucial for future studies, to generate datasets that allow higher level ecosystem analyses.

This review quantifies plastic interaction in marine biota. Firstly, entanglement and ingestion records for all marine birds, mammals, turtles, fish, and invertebrate species, are summarized from 747 studies. Marine debris affected 914 species through entanglement and/or ingestion. Ingestion was recorded for 701 species, entanglement was documented for 354 species. Secondly, the frequency of occurrence of ingestion per species (Sp-%FO) was extracted for marine birds, mammals and turtles. Thirdly, for seabird species, average numbers of plastics ingested per individual were determined. Highest Sp-%FO and average number of plastics were found in tubenosed seabirds with 41% of all birds analysed having plastics, on average 9.9 particles per bird. The Sp-%FO and average number of ingested particles is lower for most other species. However, for certain species, ingestion rates of litter are reason for serious concern. Standardized methods are crucial for future studies, to generate datasets that allow higher level ecosystem analyses.

Although ingestion of plastic by tubenosed seabirds has been documented regularly, identification of the polymer composition of these plastics has rarely been described. Polymer assessment may assist in identifying sources and may indicate risks from additives occurring in specific types of polymers. Using known test materials, two identification methods Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and near infrared spectroscopy (FTIR and NIR) were compared. Although both methods were found to be similarly suitable for identification of plastic polymers, a significant difference was observed in identification of natural materials. FTIR frequently misclassified natural materials as being a synthetic polymer. Within our results, an 80% match score threshold functioned best to distinguish between natural items and synthetics. Using NIR, the historical variability of plastics ingested by northern fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) from the Dutch sector of the North Sea was analysed for three time periods since the 1980s. For the more recent decade, variability between fulmars from different regions in the northeast Atlantic was investigated. Regional variation was further explored by analysing plastics obtained from the stomachs of southern hemisphere relatives of the fulmar (southern fulmar, cape petrel, snow petrel) and Wilson’s storm petrel. Results show that proportional abundance of polymer types in these seabirds is closely related to the plastic categories that they ingest (e.g. pellets, foam, fragments). The uptake of different plastic categories and related polymer types most likely reflects spatial and temporal variations in availability rather than ingestion preferences of the birds.