Monitoring for Lead Pollution using Feathers of Feral Pigeons (Columba livia) from Korea

Abstract

We investigated lead exposure conditions using unwashed feathers of feral pigeons as a monitor for lead pollution from rural, central urban, and four industrial complex areas in Korea with different ambient lead concentrations. Overall, the lead levels in the feathers increased when the atmospheric lead levels increased, so that the lead levels in the feathers from urban and industrial areas were two to four times greater than those in the rural area. However, there are no significant differences in the liver lead concentrations between rural and the other areas, suggesting that the lead originated from ingestion are not differences in locations. A positive correlation was found between the concentration of lead in livers and feathers from rural, indicating that the feather lead concentrations in this area seem to mainly reflect the internal tissue lead through the metabolic process. However, there are no significant correlations in the other areas, and we observed a relatively higher lead accumulation ratio of feathers to livers. It, therefore, indicates that external contamination onto the feather surface may be an important source for lead levels in feathers rather than transfer from internal tissue lead.

Cadmium, lead, and mercury levels in feathers of small passerine birds: Noninvasive sampling strategy

“…Cadmium and mercury levels in feathers of the various species (Table 1) were low and similar to levels found in small passerines from uncontaminated areas of land ecosystems [5,22,23]. Lead levels (Table 1) were similar to those found in other insectivorous passerines in areas with human impact, including heavy metal contamination [24,25].…”

Do trace metals select for darker birds in urban areas? An experimental exposure to lead and zinc

“…Moreover, bird sensitivity to trace metals did not depend on their plumage colouration for several traits. The lack of results may originate from the low beneficial effect of plumage melanin under metal exposure, the experimental exposure to metal concentrations underestimating the natural range (zinc and lead in the feathers were, respectively, 80 and 1.5 times less concentrated than measured in wild feral pigeons; Nam et al ., ; Adout et al ., ; Brait & Filho, ; Frantz et al ., ; Chatelain et al ., ), high interindividual variation (i.e. in trace metal exposure prior to the experiment) reducing the probability to detect some effects, or from ongoing selection ultimately favouring dark plumage along with a series of other traits.…”

Assessment of environmental contamination using feathers of Bubulcus ibis L., as a biomonitor of heavy metal pollution, Pakistan

“…Recently, several studies have focused on the nondestructive techniques to monitor the concentrations of heavy metals and organic pollutants using hairs (Burger 1993;Covaci et al 2002) and feathers (Pilastro et al 1993;Nam et al 2003;Dauwe et al 2005;Jaspers et al 2007; Van den Steen et al 2007). For example, Dauwe et al (2002) investigated concentration of two non-essential (Cd and Pb) and two essential (Cu and Zn) heavy metals in the outermost tail feathers of great (Parus major) and blue tits (Parus caeruleus) and Burger and Gochfeld (2000a) compared concentrations of Pb, Cd, Hg, As, Cr, Mn, Se and Ti in feathers of birds nesting on Midway Atoll in the northern Pacific Ocean.…”