Rosenberg Institute Seminar Series - Matthew Savoca

Plastic pollution in marine food webs: Trends, pathways, and risk assessments

Matthew Savoca, Ph.D., Stanford University

As plastic production increases, understanding how plastic debris enters and flows through

marine food webs is becoming more crucial than ever before. Data from abiotic (water,

sediment) and biotic (seabirds, fish) reservoirs have confirmed exponential growth of meso-

and microplastics and fibers in marine systems over the past half century. This presentation will

focus on what is known about how marine consumers ingest plastic, how plastic moves through

the marine food web, and what strategies and techniques are emerging to evaluate the risks of

ingested plastic debris. Monterey Bay has proven an ideal location to investigate these issues

and serves as a natural comparison to the well-studied and more heavily impacted San

Francisco Bay and its adjacent marine sanctuaries. Taken together, our work can help scientists

and managers understand and mitigate this emerging pollutant in California’s waters and

beyond.

Matthew Savoca is a postdoctoral researcher at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford

University. Matthew completed his PhD in Ecology at the University of California, Davis, where

his research focused on why marine animals mistake plastic debris for prey items. More recently,

he has studied how microplastics flow through pelagic food webs, using Monterey Bay, California

as a model ecosystem for understanding these processes. Specifically, he studies the foraging

behavior of baleen whales, their zooplankton and forage fish prey, and their possible interactions

with microplastics. Matthew is also passionate about science communication; his popular science

writing has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Scientific American, and the Washington

Post, among other outlets.