Talk on Plastic Pollution

A close-up of plastic microfibers and zooplankton on the ocean surface.\Photo courtesy of Cape Perpetua Collaborative.

The Cape Perpetua Collaborative is hosting a Young Scientist Webinar Series featuring graduate students and postdocs sharing their ocean research. This series will take place October – April on the second Tuesday of each month at 5:30 p.m.

Next up, on Tuesday, Oct. 12, is Anna Bolm, a Faculty Research Assistant with the Cooperative Institute for Marine Ecosystem and Resources Studies at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport (and also, we might add, a CoastWatcher).

Her presentation is “Northern California Current zooplankton indiscriminately internalize microplastics.”  Plastic pollution continues to rise with millions of tons entering the oceans annually. Researchers are still clarifying what risks plastics pose to marine organisms, which can be challenging due to their trait diversity and spatial patchiness. In the study that Bolm will describe, zooplankton were collected off the Northern California and Oregon coasts in 2019 to identify what types of plastics they’re ingesting and inform future risk assessments.

To register for this free public event, go here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8ws_vqoSRnSVGxtvLo7RUA