Since there is plastic, the world's oceans have gradually "enriched" with this new component, in every possible form, and hundreds of species have begun to feed on them, directly or indirectly. With dramatic consequences, it is natural.
Why do so many species, from plankton to whales and up to the birds, they can not discriminate what
is food to one that often kills them instead? It is an astonishing fact, and so far no real explanation, but a new study has now proposed an answer, at least as regards the behavior of birds: the smells of food plastic.
To understand what happens you have to start from the beginning of the food chain, from algae. Many algae are eaten by krill, word for several species of small marine invertebrates, and the krill is itself a source of food for many animals and seabirds.
The smell of dimethyl sulfide is like a bell that calls for dinner, "says Matthew Savoca (UCSB), lead author of the study," when the smell gets to the brain, the birds know that lunch is at the table, and swallow without thinking too much about what they put in their mouths. "
According Savoca the amount of plastic that ends up in the oceans of the world is doubling every ten years. An analysis of 2014 was estimated that the amount of plastic in the sea is about a quarter of a billion tons, largely constituted by particles not bigger than a grain of rice.
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