Human land use drives microplastic abundance in terrestrial wildlife.

Microplastic burdens in free-ranging lowland tapirs and giant anteaters across Brazil increase with both human footprint exposure and proximity to development and waste management infrastructure.

• Why it matters: Ecological and landscape drivers of microplastic accumulation in terrestrial wildlife are poorly understood, especially as human land-use change accelerates in high-pressure regions like Brazil.
• What they did: The study paired in vivo microplastic measurements with high-resolution tracking data for lowland tapirs and giant anteaters across Brazil, relating blood microplastic burdens to human footprint exposure and distance to development and waste infrastructure.
• The result: Microplastics were detected in blood even for individuals in seemingly pristine habitats far from development, implying direct exposure to human-modified landscapes is not the only contributor and informing proximity-based management.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.