Scientists have determined why marine plastic debris is so tempting to sea turtles.
According to a new study, garbage floating in the ocean becomes coated in microbes, algae, plants, and small animals that smell like food—a process known as biofouling.
“We found that loggerhead sea turtles respond to odors from biofouled plastics in the same way they respond to food odorants, suggesting that turtles may be attracted to plastic debris not only by the way it looks, but by the way it smells,” Joseph Pfaller, of the University of Florida, said in a statement.
This “olfactory trap,” as he called it, may help explain why sea turtles ingest and become entangled in plastic so frequently.
“Very young turtles feed at the surface, and plastics that float on the surface of the ocean affect them,” according to Kayla M. Goforth, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill doctoral student who worked on the study.
“Older turtles feed further down in the water column, sometimes on the ocean bottom,” she continued. “Regardless of where plastics are distributed in the ocean, turtles are likely to eat them.”
To learn more, Pfaller & Co. enlisted 15 young, captive-reared loggerheads in an experimental arena, piping in airborne odorants (water and clean plastic as controls, plus turtle food and ocean-soaked plastic) and recording the reptiles’ reactions.
The results—which surprised scientists—suggest that sea turtles respond to biofouled plastic in the same way they respond to their daily bread.
“We expected them to respond to both to a greater extent than the control treatments,” Pfaller said. “But the turtles know the smell of their food, since they’ve been smelling and eating it in captivity for five months. I expected their responses to food to be stronger.”
Moving forward, additional studies are needed to better understand which chemicals emitted from the plastics piqued the turtles’ interest, and how waterborne odorants might come into play.
These new findings, however, show that plastics of all kinds present problems for marine animals.
“The plastic problem in the ocean is more complex than … bags that look like jellyfish or the errant straw stuck in a turtle’s nose,” Pfaller explained. “These are important and troubling pieces to the puzzle, and all plastics pose dangers to turtles.”
The full report was published this week in the journal Current Biology.
More on Geek.com:
- Plastic Pollution Poses Threat to African Turtle Paradise
- Florida Turtle Dies After Eating More Than 100 Pieces of Plastic
- Plastic Made From Fish Skin Could Help Save the World
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