Embryonic mortality and abnormalities of aquatic birds: apparent impacts of selenium from irrigation drainwater

Market baskets containing sixty food items included in the average Swedish diet were purchased from three shops in four major Swedish cities during autumn 1987. Food items were selected on the basis of food-balance-sheet data. Freeze-dried homogenates representative of each city were analysed for twelve essential or toxic mineral elements. The energy content of the market baskets (11.5 MJ) corresponded to the reference value for male adults. At this energy level the contents of calcium (1180 mg), magnesium (300 mg), iron (16 mg), zinc (12 mg) and selenium (44 micrograms) were above or close to the Swedish recommended daily intakes. The contents of manganese (3.7 mg) and molybdenum (150 micrograms) were within and that of copper (1.2 mg) was below the safe and adequate intake values given in the US recommended dietary allowance (Food and Nutrition Board, National Research Council, 1989). The content of nickel was 82 micrograms. The contents of lead (17 micrograms), cadmium (12 micrograms) and mercury (1.8 micrograms) in the daily diet were low compared with the provisional tolerable intakes set by the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives (World Health Organization, 1972, 1989). The market-basket contents of Ca, Mg, Fe and Zn calculated from values in the Swedish food composition tables were close to the analysed values, indicating that the Swedish food tables provide relevant information for the estimation of the dietary supply of these elements.

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Contents of essential and toxic mineral elements in Swedish market-basket diets in 1987

Die-offs of waterfowl have occurred in the Coeur d'Alene River system in northern Idaho since at least the early 1900's. We investigated causes of mortality and lead and cadmium contamination of 46 tundra swans (Cygnus columbianus) from 1987 to 1989; an additional 22 swans found dead in 1990 were not examined. We necropsied 43 of the 46 birds found from 1987 to 1989; 38 of these were from the Coeur d'Alene River system, which has been contaminated with mining and smelting wastes for a century, and the other 5 were from a nearby, relatively uncontaminated area. Of the 36 livers of swans from the contaminated area that were analyzed, 32 contained lethal levels of lead (6 to 40 μg/g, wet weight) and all birds exhibited several symptoms of lead poisoning, notably enlarged gall bladders containing viscous, dark-green bile. Only 13% of the lead-poisoned birds (10% when data were included from other studies of swans in the area) contained shot, compared to 95% of lead-poisoned swans in studies outside northern Idaho. Lead concentrations in blood samples from 16 apparently healthy swans (0.5 to 2.3 μg/g, and 4 lead-poisoned birds found moribund (1.3 to 9.6 μg/g) indicated that tundra swans accumulated high levels of lead from ingestion of sediment that contained up to 8,700 μg/g of lead and plants that contained up to 400 μg/g. The swans spend only a few weeks in the area staging during the spring migration. The five tundra swans from the uncontaminated area had low levels of lead and essentially no symptoms of lead poisoning. Based on the conventional standard of 0.5 μg/g in whole blood as an indicator of lead poisoning, all of the swans in the Coeur d'Alene River system were either lead-poisoned or at risk of developing plumbism.

Lead toxicosis in tundra swans near a mining and smelting complex in northern Idaho

Red-tailed hawks were exposed to sublethal levels of lead acetate for periods of 3 or 11 weeks. Alterations in the heme biosynthetic pathway were demonstrated after the first week of exposure to 0.82 mg lead per kilogram body weight per day. Activity of erythrocyte porphobilinogen synthase (aminolevulinic acid dehydratase) was depressed significantly and did not return to normal levels until 5 weeks after the termination of lead treatments. A rapid and relatively brief increase in erythrocyte free protoporphyrin and a slower but more prolonged increase in its zinc complex were also demonstrated with exposure to this dose of lead for 3 weeks. Less substantial decreases in hematocrit and hemoglobin levels occurred but only in the longer experiment with exposure to higher lead levels. Short term, low level lead exposure did not effect immune function significantly in the hawks, as measured by antibody titers to foreign red blood cells or by the mitogenic stimulation of T-lymphocytes. Increased lead exposure produced a significant decrease in the mitogenic response but had no effect on antibody titers.

Effects of chronic exposure to sublethal concentrations of lead acetate on heme synthesis and immune function in red-tailed hawks.

Mining and smelting at Kellogg-Smelterville, Idaho, resulted in high concentrations of lead in Coeur d'Alene (CDA) River sediments 15–65 km downstream, where ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) nested. Adult and nestling ospreys living along the CDA River had significantly higher blood lead concentrations than those at Lake Coeur d'Alene (intermediate area) or Pend Oreille and Flathead Lakes (reference areas). Lead concentrations in fish collected from the study areas paralleled those found in ospreys. Inhibition of blood δ-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase (ALAD) activity and elevation of protoporphyrin concentration provided evidence of lead exposure. In adult ospreys, ALAD activity was negatively correlated with lead in blood (r=−0.57), whereas protoporphyrin was positively correlated with lead in blood (r=+0.40). Neither hemoglobin nor hematocrit was adversely affected by the relatively modest lead concentrations found in the blood. Pronounced accumulation of lead by adults or young could ultimately result in behavioral abnormalities or death, both of which would reduce productivity of the nesting osprey population. We did not observe death related to lead, behavioral abnormalities, or reduced productivity during this 1986–87 study. Despite some lead-induced biochemical changes in blood parameters, ospreys produced young at nearly identical rates in the three study areas; these rates were among the highest ever reported in the western United States. Post-fledging survival of ospreys exposed to lead early in life remains an unknown. Lead does not biomagnify in the food chain as do organochlorine pesticides and mercury and several osprey behavior traits reduce the potential for the species to accumulate critical levels of lead. Swans, which feed at a lower trophic level, continue to die from environmental lead in the region.

Lead accumulation and osprey production near a mining site on the Coeur d'Alene River, Idaho

Furnace atomic absorption is a very sensitive method for determination of lead and other trace metals in a variety of samples, but it is prone to matrix interferences. A major improvement in the method is achieved by the use of a L'vov platform, a small piece of graphite placed inside the furnace tube, onto which the sample solution is pipetted. The temperature of the platform rises more slowly than that of the tube wall during the atomization cycle, and sample vaporization is delayed until the furnace atmosphere is at a high and nearly constant temperature. The resulting atomization behavior is more consistent and less matrix-dependent for numerous analyte elements, including lead. Results are further improved by addition of ammonium phosphate to all samples and standards as a matrix modifier. For example, in comparing analyte sensitivity (slope of the absorbance vs concentration curve) in a variety of food sample types to the sensitivity in dilute HNO3, the average lead response showed 60 +/- 15% suppression due to the sample matrices. Use of the L'vov platform and matrix modifier virtually eliminated the suppression and improved the precision.

Millie L Kaiser

Papers

Food analysis for lead using furnace atomic absorption and a L'vov platform.