What chemical pollutants are in the plastics ingested by Kelp Gulls?

Methods

Summary

During the project we developed in Uruguay we could secure several diet samples in 2011-2013 and in 2015 that are still being analyzed for plastic fragments. Thus, organic pollutants on these plastic samples will be analyzed in the Laboratory of Biomarkers and Stable Isotopes of the Astrobiology Centre (CSIC-INTA) of Spain.

We will analyze heavily used man-made industrial chemicals (PCBs, DDTs, HCHs) and polycyclic aromatic compounds (PAHs), which have natural and anthropogenic origins. Both "families" of pollutants have direct implications with negative health effects in animals and humans.

Persistent organic pollutants will be extracted from plastic samples with organic solvents (dichloromethane and hexane). Afterwards, a short clean-up step to remove other interfering/impurities, and then analyzed/identified using gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS).