First record of synthetic micro-fibre ingestion by Mute Swans Cygnus olor and Whooper Swans C. cygnus
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Despite an acute focus on the ingestion of large and small synthetic debris by seabirds, scant consideration has been given to their occurrence in other avian species inhabiting coastal and inland wetland areas. Here, we assess ingestion of synthetic micro-fibres (i.e. microplastics and other non-natural fibres, 0.5-5 mm in size) by Mute Swans Cygnus olor inhabiting a large freshwater reservoir (n = 12 faecal samples), and from Whooper Swans C. cygnus wintering on a remote offshore Atlantic island (n = 11 faecal samples). Samples were chemically digested to eliminate labile organic matter including natural fibres. In total, 79 synthetic micro-fibres were recovered at frequencies of 4.2 ± 0.8 and 2.6 ± 0.7 (mean ± s.e.) per sample, ranging from 0-10 and 0-7 micro-fibres per sample, for Mute Swan and Whooper Swan faecal samples, respectively. The number of synthetic micro-fibres recovered did not differ significantly between species or sites. Similarly, there was no difference in the number of synthetic micro-fibres detected per gram of faecal sample. Overall, our preliminary data further bolster emerging records for the ingestion of synthetic debris by non-marine waterbirds inhabiting freshwater and coastal areas.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".