Abstract
A 3 year monitoring programme, realized in a citizen science context, from 2014 until 2016, allowed us to gather information on the prevalent quantities and qualities of anthropogenic waste in five Mediterranean coastal areas within the Pelagos Sanctuary, three of them located in Liguria, near La Spezia Gulf, and the other two in Tuscany. Here, we present results concerning the Polymeric Articles’ abundances registered during the survey. Moreover, we show the results of the first study devoted to describe and quantify the anthropogenic content of the nest of a pair of Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus), a pelagic bird that, starting from some years, has been reproducing regularly in La Spezia Gulf. This breeding is atypical for this species, as is associated with artificial structures such as piers, floating docks, or boats; the material used in the construction of the nest reflects the “anthropogenic” link with the chosen location and objects of polymeric origin in particular abound. We detect the existence of a correlation between the most abundant types of Anthropogenic Marine Debris found in the Northern Gannet’ nest (fragments of polypropylene nets) and one of the productive activities of the zones.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Angelo Gandolfi and all the LIPU-La Spezia volunteers, for providing data and information useful for carrying out this study; volunteers of University of Pisa and of high schools of La Spezia, Parma, Aulla, Torino for their help during collection of macro AMDs in the monitored Macro-Area, suring SEACleaner Project. Thanks also to the Municipality of Portovenere, and of the Portovenere and Palmaria Island Natural Regional Park. For details of proposed ECOMUSSEL project—promoted by the La Spezia’s cooperative of mussel farmers (Cooperativa mitilicultori Spezzini), in collaboration with the University of Bologna, University of Siena, the Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA), Legambiente association, and the Cooperativa Mare scrl.—we thank Giorgio Zampetti, Serena Carpenteri and S. diMarco of Legambiente, Valeria Frittelloni, Giovanna Marino and Rosanna Laraia of ISPRA, and to Giuseppe Prioli of Coop Mare. A particular thank to Marco Bianucci of CNR-ISMAR for its support in the graphical and statistical part.
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This paper is the peer-reviewed version of a contribution selected among those presented at the Conference on Marine Litter held at Accademia dei Lincei, Rome on December 1, 2017, organized jointly with ENEA and Forum Plinianum.
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Merlino, S., Abbate, M., Pietrelli, L. et al. Marine litter detection and correlation with the seabird nest content. Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei 29, 867–875 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12210-018-0750-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12210-018-0750-3