Emperor penguin chicks show no evidence yet of ingesting microplastics through their food.
Emperor penguin chicks show no evidence yet of ingesting microplastics through their food. Good news from Antarctica: researchers have examined emperor penguins and found no evidence of microplastics in their stomachs. The study, conducted by the University of Basel and the Alfred-Wegener Institute, is an important assessment of environmental pollution at the South Pole. The researchers studied a colony of emperor penguins in Atka Bay, a remote area on the northeastern edge of the Ekström Ice Shelf. "We had already conducted studies of water samples there and discovered microplastics, albeit in low concentrations," explains Clara Leistenschneider, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Basel. The impact of pollution on the animals living there, however, was still largely unexplored. To determine the level of microplastic contamination in the emperor penguins' food sources, researchers analyzed the gizzard contents of 41 chicks found dead in the colony.
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