Minimal Accumulation of Microplastics in Shorebirds at Migratory Stopover Sites in Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We quantified egested microplastics and identified plastic polymer composition for three shorebird species (Western Sandpiper Calidris mauri, Dunlin Calidris alpina, and Semipalmated Sandpiper Calidris pusilla) by collecting fecal samples at major stopover sites on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of Canada in 2022. The sampling effort resulted in a total of 133 individual fecal samples, 93 from the Pacific sites and 40 from the Atlantic sites. Frequency of occurrence (FO) of microplastics was generally low and ranged by species: Western Sandpiper (FO = 13%, n = 11/87), Dunlin (FO = 17%, n = 1/6), and Semipalmated Sandpiper (FO = 3%, n = 1/40). We isolated a total of 14 plastic microfibers from 13 birds, of which polyester was the most common polymer (n = 6), followed by polypropylene (n = 4), and polyamide (n = 4). The colour of microplastics were white (n = 9, 64%) and black (n = 5, 36%), and the average length was 2.35 mm (SD = 1.18 mm). This study adds Western Sandpiper and Semipalmated Sandpiper to the list of shorebirds that are demonstrated to ingest microplastic pollution and underscores the need to understand the consequences of such ingestion.
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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 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| 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".