plastic-data-aggregated_2026
Cleaned and aggregated dataset used in the analyses.
To get from the raw data to this dataset see details on GitHub in script 01-data-preparation. In brief we:
- recalculate median year of each study to give a decimal number
- standardise body size with TWO standard deviations, as suggested by Gelman 2008
- merge trait and plastic datasets
- convert all No/Yes variables to binary 0/1.
- add a column called tips which is the Binomial name with "_" to match the tree
- aggregate age class into just two life history stages: free-flying and not (i.e. nestbound). We exclude nestbound birds but keep mixed studies.
- remove columns we don't need in the analyses
- remove a small number of NAs which we aren't able to work with. We lose a few studies, which include few species each, and one species with no diet info.
We also aggregated the data because some studies separate birds into small groups (i.e. within-study sampling locations). However, for the purposes of meta-analyses, we are treating all observations as exchangeable (i.e. as replicates) if they:
- are collected by the same authors (Source)
- in the same Marine Region
- in the same Year
Columns are as follows.
- clements2025_binomial. Species name matched to Clements et al 2025 taxonomy.
- tips. Species name matched to Clements et al 2025 taxonomy with _ to match the phylogeny.
- order. Taxonomic order.
- family. Taxonomic family.
- freeflying. Freeflying (adult, subadult, adult/subadult age class) or mixed. 1 (freeflying) or NA (mixed). Nestbound birds have been removed.
- source. Source name in the form Author et al, YEAR. This matches the Source column in 01_sources-for-plastic-ingestion-data and 02-plastic-ingestion-data.
date_median. Median year the study covered. marine_region. Ocean basin of study site. Options are Arctic, Indian, North Atlantic, North Pacific, South Atlantic, South Pacific, or Southern oceans. - sampling_method. Primary way that plastic samples were obtained. Options are bolus, brushing, lavage, necropsy, regurgitation or scat.
- body_mass_g. Body mass (g).
- body_mass_2sd. Mean normalised body mass.
- main_diet. Primary diet based on the dominant prey type. Options are: carrion and non-fish vertebrates, cephalopods, crustaceans, fish, or other invertebrates.
- carrion. Presence or absence of carrion in the diet description. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- fish. Presence or absence of carrion in the diet description. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- cephalopods. Presence or absence of carrion in the diet description. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- crustaceans. Presence or absence of carrion in the diet description. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- other_inverts. Presence or absence of other invertebrates (i.e. not cephalopods or crustaceans) in the diet description. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- as_fishery. Presence or absence of carrion in the diet description. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- as_agriculture. Presence or absence of carrion in the diet description. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- as_refuse. Presence or absence of carrion in the diet description. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- anthropogenic_subsidy. Does the species use anthropogenic food sources? 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- pelagic_specialist. Is the species a pelagic specialist? 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- feeding_method. Primary feeding method for each species. Options are: aerial pursuit, bottom-feeding, diving, plunging (includes pursuit plunging and surface plunging), scavenging, skimming, or surface seizing (includes dipping and pattering).
- aerial_pursuit. Presence or absence of aerial pursuit feeding. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- bottom_feeding. Presence or absence of bottom feeding. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- diving. Presence or absence of diving feeding. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- plunging. Presence or absence of plunging. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- scavenging. Presence or absence of scavenging. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- skimming. Presence or absence of skim feeding. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- surface_seizing. Presence or absence of surface seizing. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- terrestrial_feeding. Presence or absence of terrestrial feeding. 0 (absence) or 1 (presence).
- n_plastic. Number of sampled birds that had ingested at least one piece of plastic.
- n_total. Number of birds sampled.
- FO. Frequency of occurrence of plastic. This is calculated as n_plastic / n_total.
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Resources
Cite this as
Stephanie Avery-Gomm; Nia Potapova; Chrissie Potter; Alexander Bond et al. (2025). plastic-data-aggregated_2026 (from Global seabird plastic occurrence database) [Data set resource]. Natural History Museum.
https://data.nhm.ac.uk/dataset/global-seabird-plastic-occurrence-database/resource/cb5fb1bb-45f0-43dc-add7-9f016f0612a1
Retrieved: 05:31 02 Sep 2026 (UTC)
Additional Information
| Last updated | 26 January 2026 |
|---|---|
| Created | unknown |
| Format | CSV |
| License | Creative Commons Attribution |
| Created | 10 months ago |
| Media type | text/csv |
| Size | 345,844 |
| format | CSV |
| id | cb5fb1bb-45f0-43dc-add7-9f016f0612a1 |
| last modified | 7 months ago |
| metadata modified | 7 months ago |
| package id | 4099c26a-b02a-4d0b-9f44-7f9d9ec44e5e |
| position | 7 |
| state | active |