High frequency of micro- and meso-plastics ingestion in a sample of neonate sea turtles from a major rookery

Rice, Nikia; Hirama, Shigetomo; Witherington, Blair

High frequency of micro- and meso-plastics ingestion in a sample of neonate sea turtles from a major rookery

2021

Rice, Nikia | Hirama, Shigetomo | Witherington, Blair

We studied marine litter ingestion in 380 neonate sea turtles that washed ashore dead onto Florida's central Atlantic coast (USA) following onshore winds. Our sample of “washbacks” included 284 loggerheads (Caretta caretta), 95 green turtles (Chelonia mydas), and one hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata). Of these, 78.7% had ingested plastics and 45.3% had ingested tar. There was a significant relationship between turtles' carapace length and total mass of ingested plastic. Ingested plastics included microplastics (<5 mm) and larger sizes up to 25% of carapace length. Washbacks' body condition indices were significantly poorer than condition indices of wild turtles captured at sea. Washbacks showed a negative association between plastic load and body condition index, evidence that high plastic loads resulted in diminished nutrition, with possible effects on somatic growth, stage duration, and survivorship. Evidence points to plastics ingestion being an important source of population-level effects in neonate sea turtles.

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