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Fulmar Litter EcoQO monitoring in the Netherlands : Update 2017

2018 13 citations

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Long-term monitoring of plastic in the stomachs of Northern Fulmars in the Netherlands tracks marine plastic pollution trends over decades. Fulmar stomach contents are used as an official ecological quality indicator for North Sea plastic pollution, providing one of the longest running microplastic time series available.

Fulmar Litter EcoQO monitoring in the Netherlands -Update 2017Marine debris has serious economic and ecological consequences.Economic impacts are most severe for coastal communities, tourism, shipping and fisheries.Marine wildlife suffers from entanglement and ingestion of debris, with microparticles potentially affecting marine food chains up to the level of human consumers.In the North Sea, marine litter problems were firmly recognized in 2002 when surrounding states assigned to OSPAR the task to include marine plastic litter in its system of Ecological Quality Objectives (EcoQOs) (North Sea Ministerial Conference 2002).At that time, in the Netherlands, marine litter was already monitored by the abundance of plastic debris in stomachs of a seabird species, the Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis).Fulmars are purely offshore foragers that ingest all sorts of litter from the sea surface and normally do not regurgitate poorly degradable diet components like plastics.Initial size of ingested debris is

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