Tag: Microplastics

International Days, Methods papers

Trash Talking: Every Litter Bit Hurts

Post provided by Chloe Robinson

Trash collected from a beach clean at Buccaneer Bay Provincial Park, BC in collaboration with Pender Harbour Ocean Discovery Station (PODS) and the Loon Foundation. Picture credit: Jessica Scott.

It is no surprise that COVID-19 has changed the course of a substantial number of things in the world since the start of the pandemic. One of the most understated impacts is the devastating reversal of many years’ worth of fighting plastic pollution. In the wake of International Coast Cleanup Day and World Environmental Health Day, Associate Editor Dr. Chloe Robinson will be discussing the impacts of marine litter and plastic pollution on marine life and how the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup program is working to stop the leak of litter and plastic pollution into the ocean.

Continue reading “Trash Talking: Every Litter Bit Hurts”
Unknown's avatarChloe V. RobinsonLeave a comment
Conservation and management, Editor Recommendations, International Days, Methods papers

Methods for Ocean Conservation: World Ocean’s Day 2020

Post provided by Chloe Robinson

 

Whether you refer to them as the ‘briny deep’, the ‘seven seas’ or ‘Davy Jones’ locker’, the world’s oceans play a huge part in all of our lives. Consisting of 70% of the earth’s surface, oceans driving global weather patterns, through regulating a conveyor belt of heat from the equator to the poles. Oceans are also teeming with life, from single-celled organisms to large apex predators, such as the killer whale (Orcinus orca).

Male killer whale exhaling. Photo credit: Chloe Robinson/Sea Watch Foundation.

As with every other ecosystem on earth, the world’s oceans and the marine life they provide a home to, are under increasing pressure from human-related activities. At the 1992 Earth Summit, Canada proposed the concept of a World Ocean Day as a day to celebrate our oceans and to raise awareness about the crucial role the ocean plays in our lives and the important ways people can help protect it. Since 2002, the Ocean Project has been coordinating and promoting of World Ocean Day.

Continue reading “Methods for Ocean Conservation: World Ocean’s Day 2020”
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Journal updates, Methods papers

Issue 10.10: Conservation, Molecular Techniques, Stats and More

The October issue of Methods is now online!

We’re a little lat on this post, but there’s another great issue of Methods in Ecology and Evolution online now.

This month, we cover movement ecology, plant cover class data, acoustic indices, local adaptations an much more.

There’s more information below on the Featured Articles selected by the Senior Editor and all of our freely available papers (Practical Tools and Applications articles are always free to access for everyone upon publication, whether you have a subscription or not). Continue reading “Issue 10.10: Conservation, Molecular Techniques, Stats and More”

Unknown's avatarIndia StephensonLeave a comment
General, Methods papers

Finding the Links between Prey and Microplastics

Below is a press release about the Methods in Ecology and Evolution article ‘What goes in, must come out: Combining scat‐based molecular diet analysis and quantification of ingested microplastics in a marine top predator‘ taken from Plymouth Marine Laboratory.

Wild grey seals. By Philip Newman, Natural Resources Wales

A brand new method has been developed by scientists at Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) and the University of Exeter, in collaboration with Abertay University and Greenpeace Research Laboratories, to investigate links between top predator diets and the amount of microplastic they consume through their prey. It offers potential insights into the exposure of animals in the ocean and on land to microplastics.

An estimated 9.6-25.4 million tonnes of plastic will enter the sea annually by 2025.  Microplastics in particular have been found on the highest mountains and in the deepest seas. New techniques are needed to trace, investigate and analyse this growing concern. Continue reading “Finding the Links between Prey and Microplastics”

Unknown's avatarIndia Stephenson1 Comment