Major
Environmental Science
Anticipated Graduation Year
2022
Access Type
Open Access
Abstract
Each fall and spring seasons, close to 5-million migratory birds use the Mississippi flyway to fly over Chicago as they travel thousands of miles to nesting or wintering grounds. Traveling primarily at night, birds use rest stops throughout North and South America to forage and refuel for their travels. Unfortunately, many birds will perish during this travel due to light pollution coupled with large, glass-covered buildings such as those in Chicago. Loyola’s SOAR program has been collecting and documenting these fatalities for years. Microplastics pose possible health risks to foraging birds, and with the vast expanse of land and water that migratory birds cover, they are likely to accumulate microplastics in their gastrointestinal (GI) tracts as they forage. This study examined the GI tracts of eight (8) different migratory bird species to determine if different feeding niches accumulate more or less microplastics in their bodies. The study showed that microplastic fibers may be found in any of the species examined, but no statistically significant trends across species or their respective feeding niches were found.
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Stephen Mitten, research advisor ; Sam Daughenbaugh, graduate student mentor
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Quantifying Microplastics in Migratory Birds: Loyola University Chicago Campus
Each fall and spring seasons, close to 5-million migratory birds use the Mississippi flyway to fly over Chicago as they travel thousands of miles to nesting or wintering grounds. Traveling primarily at night, birds use rest stops throughout North and South America to forage and refuel for their travels. Unfortunately, many birds will perish during this travel due to light pollution coupled with large, glass-covered buildings such as those in Chicago. Loyola’s SOAR program has been collecting and documenting these fatalities for years. Microplastics pose possible health risks to foraging birds, and with the vast expanse of land and water that migratory birds cover, they are likely to accumulate microplastics in their gastrointestinal (GI) tracts as they forage. This study examined the GI tracts of eight (8) different migratory bird species to determine if different feeding niches accumulate more or less microplastics in their bodies. The study showed that microplastic fibers may be found in any of the species examined, but no statistically significant trends across species or their respective feeding niches were found.