Human activities are changing our environment. Along with climate change and a widespread loss of biodiversity, plastic pollution now plays a predominant role in altering ecosystems globally. Here, we review the occurrence of plastic ingestion by wildlife through evolutionary and ecological lenses and address the fundamental question of why living organisms ingest plastic. We unify evolutionary, ecological, and cognitive approaches under the evolutionary trap theory and identify three main factors that may drive plastic ingestion: (i) the availability of plastics in the environment, (ii) an individual’s acceptance threshold, and (iii) the overlap of cues given by natural foods and plastics.

人类活动正在改变我们的环境。随着气候变化和生物多样性的广泛丧失，塑料污染现在在改变全球生态系统方面发挥着主要作用。在这里，我们通过进化和生态视角回顾了野生动物摄入塑料的情况，并解决了生物为什么摄入塑料的基本问题。我们在进化陷阱理论下统一了进化、生态和认知方法，并确定了可能推动塑料摄入的三个主要因素：(i) 环境中塑料的可用性，(ii) 个人的接受阈值，以及 (iii) 重叠天然食物和塑料提供的线索。