Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in plasma and feathers of nestling birds of prey from northern Norway

Abstract

Plasma samples from nestlings of two top predators, White-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) and Northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) from northern Norway were analysed for a wide range of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). Body feathers from the White-tailed eagles were also analysed and significant associations between specific PFASs in blood plasma and body feathers were found (0.36 <R < 0.67; all p < 0.05). This result suggests that analysing body feathers of White-tailed eagle could potentially be a useful non-invasive strategy to monitor PFASs exposure in nestlings of this species. White-tailed eagles showed significantly higher levels of contaminants than Northern goshawks (plasma ∑PFASs Median = 45.83 vs 17.02ngmL, p <0.05). The different exposure between both species seemed to be related to different dietary input, as quantified by stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of body feathers. A priori, the bird of prey populations studied are not at risk for PFASs, since the levels in plasma of both species were hundreds to thousand times lower than the toxic reference values reported for predatory birds. However, further studies on larger sample sizes are needed to confirm this hypothesis since toxic thresholds for nestling birds of prey are not established.

White-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) feathers from Norway are suitable for monitoring of legacy, but not emerging contaminants

“…The concentration profile with high concentrations in the preen oil was expected due to the high lipid content of the oil and the lipophilic nature of these compounds (Eulaers et al, 2011b). The concentrations of the main contaminant contributors (CB 153,p,BDE 47 and PFUnA, Table 1) in plasma, feathers and preen oil were slightly lower in the current study than previously reported in white-tailed eagle nestlings from Norway (Eulaers et al, 2011a(Eulaers et al, , 2011b(Eulaers et al, , 2014Gómez-Ramírez et al, 2017). The samples from the previous studies were collected in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2014, and some also at other locations than Smøla and…”

“…Data were treated in the same way as in most previous studies on bird feathers and preen oil to allow for direct comparison (i.e. Eulaers et al, 2011a, 2011b, Gómez-Ramírez et al, 2017. Thus, compounds quantified in over 50 % of samples and detected in both feathers and plasma samples within each location and each year were included in the statistical analyses.…”

“…Also, no significant correlation was detected when our data were combined with data from Gomez-Ramirez et al (2017). The variability of the plasma and feather correlation suggests that feathers may not be a suitable matrix for investigating internal concentrations of PFUnA (Gómez-Ramírez et al, 2017). The large variation observed between years and locations in detection frequencies of several PFASs in feathers also leads us to question the general suitability of feathers for monitoring internal PFASs concentrations.…”

“…While feathers have been used for decades as a matrix for monitoring environmental concentrations of metal (Burger, 1993), it was only in the early 2000s that feathers were proposed for legacy POP analyses (Dauwe et al, 2005;Jaspers et al, 2006). Recently, feathers have also been investigated as a matrix for analysing and monitoring PFASs (Gómez-Ramírez et al, 2017;Jaspers et al, 2013;Li et al, 2017;Meyer et al, 2009), and only a few studies published to date have investigated the suitability of NBFRs and PFRs monitoring in feathers (Eulaers et al, 2014;Svendsen et al, 2018). Consequently, little is known about the exposure to and deposition of these ECs into feathers.…”

“…PFUnA concentrations in feathers and plasma from 2015 and 2016 were not in a monotonic relationship due to the large differences between the years and thus could not be analysed with Spearman's rank correlation. To investigate if a larger sample size could create a monotonic relationship, we included PFUnA concentrations reported in feathers and plasma from white-tailed eagle nestlings sampled in 2014 in Steigen (data fromGómez-Ramírez et al 2017). By adding the latter samples and pooling samples from 2014 -2016, a monotonic relationship was established between feather and plasma concentrations, and the relationship was analysed by Spearman's rank correlation.…”