Measuring nest incorporation of anthropogenic debris by seabirds: an opportunistic approach increases geographic scope and reduces costs

Data on the prevalence of anthropogenic debris in seabird nests can be collected alongside other research orthrough community science initiatives to increase the temporal and spatial scale of data collection. To assess theusefulness of this approach, we collated data on nest incorporation of debris for 14 seabird species from 84colonies across five countries in northwest Europe. Of 10,274 nests monitored 12% contained debris, however,there was large variation in the proportion of nests containing debris among species and colonies. For severalspecies, the prevalence of debris in nests was significantly related to the mean Human Footprint Index (HFI), aproxy for human impact on the environment, within 100 km of the colony. Collecting opportunistic data on nestincorporation of debris by seabirds provides a cost-effective method of detecting changes in the prevalence ofdebris in the marine environment across a large geographic scale