Interrater reliability of the MAS may be lower than desired for clinical use for muscles other than hamstrings and elbow flexors, and intrarater reliability may also be lower than desired for muscles other than the hamstrings.

Author order is crucial; it is the currency of academia. Within STEM disciplines, women and junior researchers--those who are the primary constituents of our lab-- consistently receive less credit for equal work. Our Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR) is a feminist marine science laboratory at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. Recognizing that the stakes are high for CLEAR members, we have developed an approach to author order that emphasizes process and equity rather than system and equality. Our process is premised on: 1) deciding author order vy consensus; 2) valuing care work and other forms of labour that are usually left out of scientific value systems; and 3) taking intersectional social standing into account.  Although CLEAR’s approach differs from others’, we take author order seriously as a compromised but dominant structure within science we must contend with. That is, rather than attempt to circumvent author order, we stay with the trouble. This article outlines this process. 

Silver hake, (Merluccius bilinearis), contributes significant biomass to Northwest Atlantic ecosystems. The incidence of plastic ingestion for 134 individuals collected from Newfoundland, Canada was examined through visual examination of gastrointestinal contents and Raman spectrometry. We found a frequency of occurrence of ingestion of 0%. Through a comprehensive literature review of globally published fish ingestion studies, we found our value to be consistent with 41% (n = 100) of all reported fish ingestion rates. We could not statistically compare silver hake results to other species due to low sample sizes in other studies (less than n = 20) and a lack of standardized sampling methods. We recommend that further studies should 1) continue to report 0% plastic ingestion rates and 2) should describe location and species-specific traits that may contribute to 0% ingestion rates, particularly in locations where fish consumption has cultural and economic significance.

This study reports the first baselines of plastic ingestion for three fish species that are common food fish in Newfoundland, Canada. Species collections occurred between 2015-2016 for Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), and capelin (Mallotus villosus). The frequency of occurrence (%FO) of plastic ingestion for both spawning Atlantic salmon (n=69) and capelin (n=350) was 0%. Of the 1,010 Atlantic cod collected over two years, 17 individuals had ingested plastics, a %FO of 1.68%. This is the only multi-year investigation of plastic ingestion in Atlantic cod for the Northwest Atlantic, and the first for capelin and salmon in the region. Considering the ecological, economic, and cultural importance of these fish species, this study is the beginning of a longitudinal study of plastic ingestion to detect future changes in contamination levels.

Shoreline surveys are an accessible and common method for monitoring plastic pollution in aquatic environments. Their results are critical to well-informed pollution mitigation efforts. Here, we show that three environmental variables: (1) coarse sediment, (2) accumulations of organic material, and (3) snow and ice are dramatically underrepresented by existing shoreline plastic pollution research efforts. We reviewed 361 published shoreline surveys, encompassing 3,284 sample sites, and found that only 4% of sites included coarse sediment, only one study described sampling organic material for plastic, and only 2.5% of sites are sampled in the presence of ice or snow. The relative absence of these environmental variables may stem from the tailoring of shoreline survey guidelines to a narrow range of shoreline environments. These three features influence plastic deposition and retention on shorelines, and their underrepresentation signals a need to recalibrate research efforts towards better methodological reporting, and regional representation and relevance.

Research in animal geographies is increasingly paying attention to hierarchies and inequalities within and between nonhuman animals. The way that animals are valued differently and hierarchically within this growing body of scholarship has tended to focus on a range of biopolitical differences between and within species. Collard and Dempsey’s recent contribution, in contrast, points to the importance of hierarchy and difference in the valuation of nonhuman animals under capitalism. Their framework identifies five orientations of human and nonhuman bodies in relation to capitalist value, which in turn provides a heuristic to explore how capitalist accumulation produces and depends on differentially oriented natures. Our contribution to these debates – and to the Collard and Dempsey framework – draws on our ongoing research in Eastern Canada where salmon aquaculture is a growing yet highly contested industry. We focus on two instances of multispecies hierarchy and difference in and around the salmon cage that are central to this form of ocean-based production. In focusing on multispecies relations, we build on Collard and Dempsey's framework in two main ways. First, we show how valuation and devaluation reflect competing but relational capitalist interests, which rely on and produce different natures refracted through the logic of the nature/culture divide: Atlantic salmon are valued as game fish, and as the key species for Canada's aquaculture sector. Second, we show how capital's valuation of one species, in our case farmed salmon, implicates the valuation of others, namely sea lice and lumpfish. Our case studies extend Collard and Dempsey's framework by demonstrating how capitalist differentiation produces violence through and outside of commodification in terms of multispecies difference and hierarchy; the lives and futures of wild and farmed salmon, lumpfish and sea lice are entangled, and reflect relational and changing orientations to capitalist value over time.

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12This study reports the first baselines of plastic ingestion for three fish species that are common 13 food fish in Newfoundland, Canada. Species collections occurred between 2015-2016 for 14Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), and capelin (Mallotus villosus). 15The frequency of occurrence (%FO) of plastic ingestion for both spawning Atlantic salmon 16(n=69) and capelin (n=350) was 0%. Of the 1,010 Atlantic cod collected over two years, 17 17 individuals had ingested plastics, a %FO of 1.68%. This is the only multi-year investigation of 18 plastic ingestion in Atlantic cod for the Northwest Atlantic, and the first for capelin and salmon 19 in the region. Considering the ecological, economic, and cultural importance of these fish 20 species, this study is the beginning of a longitudinal study of plastic ingestion to detect future 21 changes in contamination levels.