Seabird family tree predicts which species accumulate plastic better than diet, global analysis finds

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Add to Preferred Sources Weighted mean FO for the 230 species in our models. Credit: Biology Letters (2026). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2026.0079 What seabirds eat might seem like a good starting point for identifying species that tend to accumulate plastic in their digestive systems. Yet a recent global analysis suggests that mapping the evolutionary relatives of birds could offer better clues than their diets or feeding methods alone.

Researchers at the University of Queensland, London's Natural History Museum and other institutions assembled records covering 93,281 birds belonging to 240 distinct species. In their models, outlined in Biology Letters , evolutionary relationships were found to be the strongest predictor of plastic occurrence in seabirds.