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Characterization of plastic ingestion in urban gull chicks and its implications for their use as pollution sentinels in coastal cities
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Researchers examined the stomach contents of 56 yellow-legged gull chicks in Barcelona and found microplastics in 100% of the birds, with larger plastic pieces in about 20%. The chicks ingested plastics from their urban coastal environment, mostly fragments and fibers from common consumer plastics. This study shows how urban wildlife can serve as indicators of plastic pollution levels and highlights the widespread contamination of coastal food webs that humans also depend on.
The increase of plastic pollution represents a significant ecological threat, particularly in human-impacted environments. However, the effects of plastic ingestion by urban wildlife are less understood. This study investigates the presence of microplastic (MPs; plastic <5 mm in size) and macroplastics (MaPs, plastic >5 mm in size) in yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis) chicks inhabiting the urban marine ecosystem of Barcelona (northeastern Spain). The stomach contents of 56 gull chicks were analysed, revealing the presence of MPs in 100 % of the individuals and MaPs in 19.64 % of individuals. Additionally, trophic analysis, through stomach content and stable isotope determination, identified links between diet and plastic ingestion, with diet diversity associated with higher MaP abundance. These results highlight the high presence of plastics in the early stages of an urban-dwelling wildlife species and open the potential role of the use of urban gull chicks as sentinels of marine and terrestrial pollution in urban coastal areas. The findings suggest that chicks can serve as bioindicators of plastic pollution, emphasizing the urgent need to address the high levels of plastic contamination in urban environments.
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Contrasting patterns of plastic ingestion and transport by an opportunistic gull across urban and agricultural landscapes
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Researchers compared plastic ingestion and GPS-tracked transport behavior in yellow-legged gulls breeding in urban Barcelona versus an inland agricultural area, finding that urban gulls carried plastics in 100% of regurgitated pellets and transported roughly ten times more plastic debris to their colonies than their inland counterparts.
Microplastic abundance in gull nests in relation to urbanization
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Microplastic counts in herring gull and great black-backed gull nests at three US colonies showed higher proportions of microplastics in urban nests than in remote ones, linking urbanization to greater microplastic accumulation in coastal bird nesting habitats.
Anthropogenic Diets and Spatial Behaviour Predict Plastic Ingestion in Urban Herring Gulls: Insights from Pellet Analysis and Gps Tracking.
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Researchers tracked seagulls in eastern Canada and found that birds who fed more often on human food waste and moved around less predictably ate more plastic, mostly from packaging materials like polystyrene (foam) and PET (common in bottles). This matters because these gulls act as an early-warning signal for how much plastic trash is entering our coastal food chains, the same waterways and wildlife that connect back to the seafood and environment humans share.
Microplastic toxicity: A review of the role of marine sentinel species in assessing the environmental and public health impacts
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Researchers reviewed how marine animals — particularly seabirds like the herring gull — can serve as sentinel species to monitor the real-world health effects of microplastic exposure across ecosystems. Because plastic pollution affects biological pathways shared across many species including humans, studying wildlife that naturally ingests varying amounts of plastic offers valuable insights into long-term toxicity risks.
Plastic pollution exposure in seabirds : from macroplastics to microplastics
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A French PhD thesis quantified plastic pollution exposure in yellow-legged gulls (Larus michahellis) across the western Mediterranean, finding microplastics (10 µm–1 mm) in nearly all examined birds, with an average of ~39 mg of plastic per bird including ~8.5 mg of small microplastics. The work developed a new tissue-level microplastic quantification protocol for vertebrates, and shows that seabirds near landfills and agricultural areas carry the heaviest plastic burdens — suggesting land-based waste management directly controls wildlife microplastic exposure.
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