Mercury in Feathers and Blood of Gulls from the Southern Baltic Coast, Poland

Abstract

Gulls were assessed as sentinels of contamination in the coastal zone of the Southern Baltic, research material being obtained from dead birds collected on Polish beaches and near fishing ports in 2009–2012. In feathers and blood of four gull species: herring gull (Larus argentatus), common gull (Larus canus), black-headed gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus), and great black-backed gull (Larus marinus), concentration of total mercury (HgT) was assayed, taking into account the type of feathers, sex, and age. Stable isotopes (δ15N, δ13C) were used as tracers of trophic position in the food web. In the study, feathers and blood were compared as non-invasive indicators of alimentary exposure introducing mercury into the system. In order to do that, the correlations between mercury concentrations in the blood, feathers, and the birds’ internal tissues were examined. The strongest relations were observed in the liver for each species R 2 Common Gull = 0.94, p = 0.001; R 2 Black-headed Gull = 0.89, p = 0.001; R 2 Great Black-backed Gull = 0.53, p = 0.001; R 2 Herring Gull = 0.78, p = 0.001. While no correlation was found with feathers, only developing feathers of juvenile herring gulls were found to be a good indicator immediate of exposure through food (R 2 muscle = 0.71, p = 0.001; R 2 kidneys = 0.73, p = 0.001; R 2 heart = 0.89, p = 0.001; R 2 lungs = 0.86, p = 0.001; R 2 brain = 0.83, p = 0.001). Additionally, based on studies of herring gull primary feathers, decrease of mercury concentration in the diet of birds over the last two decades is also discussed.

Intraspecific Variation in Mercury, δ15N, and δ13C Among 3 Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) Populations in the Northern Antarctic Peninsula Region

“…Acquiring feathers from deceased birds to assess exposure to contaminants and gather information on diet via stable isotopes provides a noninvasive technique that reduces the negative impacts of human disturbance on wildlife (Giese 1996). Although using feathers from live birds is a more common approach, multiple studies have been conducted using feathers from deceased birds (Ainley et al 2003; Vega et al 2010; La Sala et al 2011; Vasil et al 2012; Kaler et al 2014; Kim et al 2015; Cipro et al 2017; Szumiło‐Pilarska et al 2017; Dimitrijevic et al 2018). Of the available studies that compared results from feathers from live and dead birds, no significant variation was observed in Hg concentrations between groups (La Sala et al 2011; Vasil et al 2012; Kaler et al 2014).…”

Green Kingfishers as Sentinel Species for Mercury Contamination in Amazon

“…Due to potential Hg contamination, studies that utilise animals as possible contamination sentinels are increasingly used for monitoring Hg and other metals in the biota (Stewart et al 1997;Lavoie et al 2014;Szumiło-Pilarska et al 2017). In Brazil, most of studies about Hg contamination focus on sh from different trophic guilds (Bastos et al 2008;Ceccatto et al 2016;Marshall et al 2016) and recently with others organisms, e.g., alligator Caiman spp.…”

Blood mercury concentrations in four sympatric gull species from South Western France: Insights from stable isotopes and biologging

“…Hg concentrations in adults ranged from similar (EHG and LBBG) to much higher (YLG and GBBG) than in gulls from the Baltic Sea including EHG and GBBG, or Brown skuas (Stercorarius antarcticus lonnbergi) from three colonies of the Southern Ocean (Mills et al, 2022;Szumiło-Pilarska et al, 2017). Notably, we found GBBG to have average blood Hg concentrations similar to those of the Wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans; Anderson et al, 2009), the highest trophic position seabird in the Southern Ocean (Cherel et al, 2017) and one of the species with the highest known Hg levels worldwide (Blévin et al, 2013;Carravieri et al, 2014a;.…”