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Estimates of Marine Debris Accumulation on Beaches Are Strongly Affected by the Temporal Scale of Sampling

Marine debris is a global issue with impacts on marine organisms, ecological processes, aesthetics and economies. Consequently, there is increasing interest in quantifying the scale of the problem. Accumulation rates of debris on beaches have been advocated as a useful proxy for at-sea debris loads....

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Smith, Stephen D. A., Markic, Ana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3867434/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24367607
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083694
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author Smith, Stephen D. A.
Markic, Ana
author_facet Smith, Stephen D. A.
Markic, Ana
author_sort Smith, Stephen D. A.
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description Marine debris is a global issue with impacts on marine organisms, ecological processes, aesthetics and economies. Consequently, there is increasing interest in quantifying the scale of the problem. Accumulation rates of debris on beaches have been advocated as a useful proxy for at-sea debris loads. However, here we show that past studies may have vastly underestimated the quantity of available debris because sampling was too infrequent. Our study of debris on a small beach in eastern Australia indicates that estimated daily accumulation rates decrease rapidly with increasing intervals between surveys, and the quantity of available debris is underestimated by 50% after only 3 days and by an order of magnitude after 1 month. As few past studies report sampling frequencies of less than a month, estimates of the scale of the marine debris problem need to be critically re-examined and scaled-up accordingly. These results reinforce similar, recent work advocating daily sampling as a standard approach for accurate quantification of available debris in coastal habitats. We outline an alternative approach whereby site-specific accumulation models are generated to correct bias when daily sampling is impractical.
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spelling pubmed-38674342013-12-23 Estimates of Marine Debris Accumulation on Beaches Are Strongly Affected by the Temporal Scale of Sampling Smith, Stephen D. A. Markic, Ana PLoS One Research Article Marine debris is a global issue with impacts on marine organisms, ecological processes, aesthetics and economies. Consequently, there is increasing interest in quantifying the scale of the problem. Accumulation rates of debris on beaches have been advocated as a useful proxy for at-sea debris loads. However, here we show that past studies may have vastly underestimated the quantity of available debris because sampling was too infrequent. Our study of debris on a small beach in eastern Australia indicates that estimated daily accumulation rates decrease rapidly with increasing intervals between surveys, and the quantity of available debris is underestimated by 50% after only 3 days and by an order of magnitude after 1 month. As few past studies report sampling frequencies of less than a month, estimates of the scale of the marine debris problem need to be critically re-examined and scaled-up accordingly. These results reinforce similar, recent work advocating daily sampling as a standard approach for accurate quantification of available debris in coastal habitats. We outline an alternative approach whereby site-specific accumulation models are generated to correct bias when daily sampling is impractical. Public Library of Science 2013-12-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3867434/ /pubmed/24367607 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083694 Text en © 2013 Smith, Markic http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Smith, Stephen D. A.
Markic, Ana
Estimates of Marine Debris Accumulation on Beaches Are Strongly Affected by the Temporal Scale of Sampling
title Estimates of Marine Debris Accumulation on Beaches Are Strongly Affected by the Temporal Scale of Sampling
title_full Estimates of Marine Debris Accumulation on Beaches Are Strongly Affected by the Temporal Scale of Sampling
title_fullStr Estimates of Marine Debris Accumulation on Beaches Are Strongly Affected by the Temporal Scale of Sampling
title_full_unstemmed Estimates of Marine Debris Accumulation on Beaches Are Strongly Affected by the Temporal Scale of Sampling
title_short Estimates of Marine Debris Accumulation on Beaches Are Strongly Affected by the Temporal Scale of Sampling
title_sort estimates of marine debris accumulation on beaches are strongly affected by the temporal scale of sampling
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3867434/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24367607
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083694
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