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Global seabird plastic ingestion database

Data from the paper: Global seabird plastic ingestion varies across phylogeny but not behavioural traits. 2026. Stephanie Avery-Gomm, Nia Potapova, Chrissie Potter, Alexander L. Bond, Stephanie B. Borrelle, Jennifer L. Lavers, Steven J. Portugal, Hugh P. Possingham, Jennifer F. Provencher, and Natalie Cooper. ADD LINK.

Code for all analyses can be found on GitHub: https://github.com/nhcooper123/PhyloPlastics

Archived data are as follows. Please click on individual files below for their associated metadata.

Raw data

  • 01_sources-for-plastic-ingestion-data.csv. The papers from our literature searches.
  • 02_plastic-ingestion-data.csv. The raw plastic ingestion data extracted from papers in 01
  • 03_trait-data.csv. Species specific trait data taken from the literature.

Cleaned data used in the analyses

The raw data were cleaned and aggregated prior to analyses. See analyses/data-preparation and 01-data-preparation.qmd at https://github.com/nhcooper123/PhyloPlastics for more details.

  • plastic-data-aggregated_2026.csv. Aggregated data used in analyses.
  • seabird-tree-plastic-2026.csv. Phylogeny of Claramunt et al 2025 pruned to only species with plastic ingestion data.
  • full-species-list-2026.csv. Summarised dataset for all seabird species indicating which are/are not part of our plastic ingestion dataset. Used in the creation of Figure S2.

Taxonomy

  • seabird-list-Clements2025.csv. List of seabird species according to Clements et al 2025 taxonomy.

The full taxonomy file can be found here: https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/.

If you want to use the taxonomy please cite:

Clements, J. F., P. C. Rasmussen, T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, A. Spencer, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, M. Smith, and C. L. Wood. 2025. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2025. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/.

Phylogeny

  • sea-bird-tree-2026.nex. Phylogeny of Claramunt et al. 2025 pruned to seabird species only.
  • family-tree-2026.nex. Family level phylogeny of Claramunt et al. 2025 pruned to seabird families only.
  • tips-to-add.csv. Details of 39 species missing from Claramunt et al. 2025 and how these were added to the phylogeny.

The full raw phylogeny file can be found here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/evolucionario/BigBirdTree/refs/heads/main/RAGBackbone/BBtree3.tre.

If you want to use the phylogeny please cite:

Claramunt, Santiago, Catherine Sheard, Joseph W. Brown, Gala Cortés-Ramírez, Joel Cracraft, Michelle M. Su, Brian C. Weeks, and Joseph A. Tobias. 2025. “A New Time Tree of Birds Reveals the Interplay between Dispersal, Geographic Range Size, and Diversification.” Current Biology 35 (16): 3883-3895.e4.

Data and Resources

Cite this as

Stephanie Avery-Gomm; Nia Potapova; Chrissie Potter; Alexander Bond et al. (2025). Global seabird plastic ingestion database [Data set]. Natural History Museum. https://doi.org/10.5519/hemrjx9q
Retrieved: 21:45 27 Mar 2026 (UTC) BibTeX

Additional Info

Field Value
Maintainer
Primary contributors
Avery-Gomm, Stephanie;
Potapova, Nia;
Potter, Chrissie;
Bond, Alexander ( 0000-0003-2125-7238);
Borrelle, Stephanie B.;
Lavers, Jennifer L.;
Portugal, Steven J.;
Possingham, Hugh P.;
Provencher, Jennifer F. ;
Cooper, Natalie ( 0000-0003-4919-8655)
Other contributors
Temporal extent 1960-2024
Last updated 26 January 2026
Last resource update 26 January 2026 (tips-to-add)
Created 29 October 2025
License Creative Commons Attribution