Book ChapterDOI
Birds as monitors of pollutants
Robert W. Furness
- pp 86-143
TLDR
In this paper, the authors argue that birds may reflect pollutant hazards to humans better than do most invertebrates, since they are high in food chains and have more complex physiology.Abstract:
Several authors of books on the monitoring of pollution have advocated the use of animals as monitors in terrestrial and aquatic environments (e.g. Phillips, 1980; Schubert, 1985). Such studies tend to emphasize the use of sedentary invertebrate animals as biomonitors. By comparison, birds suffer from several apparent drawbacks. They are mobile, so pollutants will be picked up from a wide, often ill-defined, area; they are long-lived, so pollutant burdens may be integrated in some complex way over time; and they have more complex physiology, and so may regulate pollutant levels better then invertebrates. Furthermore, birds tend to be more difficult to sample, and killing birds may be unacceptable for conservation or ethical reasons. However, some of these characteristics may at times be positively advantegeous. Integrating pollutant levels over greater areas or timescales or over food webs, may be useful, provided that species are chosen carefully. Less sampling may be necessary if birds can reflect pollutant levels in the whole ecosystem or over a broad area. In addition, since they are high in food chains, birds may reflect pollutant hazards to humans better than do most invertebrates. It is also significant that birds are extremely popular animals with the general public, so pollutant hazards to them are likely to receive greater attention than threats to invertebrates.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Seabirds as monitors of the marine environment
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used stable isotopes of N and C from the same feathers used for mercury measurement, a technique that also permits the monitoring of trophic status over time or between regions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Marine Birds as Sentinels of Environmental Pollution
Joanna Burger,Michael Gochfeld +1 more
TL;DR: Marine birds are useful as bioindicators of environmental pollution in estuarine and marine environments because they are often at the top of the food chain, ubiquitous, and many are abundant and common, making collecting possible as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Seabirds as Monitors of Mercury in the Marine Environment
TL;DR: Experimental evidence that levels of mercury in seabirds show a dose-response relationship, so that increased contamination of the environment causes a corresponding increase in the level in birds gives a good basis for the use of seabird as monitors of mercury.
Journal ArticleDOI
Why are birds' eggs speckled?
TL;DR: It was found that pigment spots specifically demarcated thinner areas of shell, with darker spots marking yet thinner shell than paler spots, so accounting for the eggshell's characteristic spot patterns.
Journal ArticleDOI
Can excrement and feathers of nestling songbirds be used as biomonitors for heavy metal pollution
TL;DR: It is concluded that excrement of great and blue tit nestlings can be used as a biomonitor for heavy metals (lead, cadmium, arsenic, and copper), whereas feathers appear only to be suitable for lead pollution.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Concentrations of trace metals in the livers of marine mammals (seals, porpoises and dolphins) from waters around the British Isles
Robin J. Law,Catherine F. Fileman,Angela D. Hopkins,J.R. Baker,J. Harwood,D.B. Jackson,S. Kennedy,A.R. Martin,R.J. Morris +8 more
TL;DR: Samples of liver from sixty-nine marine mammals of eight species found on or near coasts around the British Isles in 1988-1989 have been analysed for a range of trace metals (Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Hg, and Pb) as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mercury levels in eggs, tissues, and feathers of herring gulls Larus argentatus from the German Wadden Sea Coast.
TL;DR: It was estimated that herring gulls from the Wadden coast ingested between 825 and 1337 microg of mercury in the year prior to analysis, and it was also estimated that female birds may excrete over 20% more mercury via their eggs than could be excreted by male birds.
Journal ArticleDOI
Quantitative Tar and Plastic Waste Distributions in the Pacific Ocean
TL;DR: The first quantitative data on tar and plastic waste distributions in the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean was reported in this article, where thirty-seven surface tows were made with a neuston net to collect particu-late pollutants quantitatively.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mercury accumulation in great shuas Catharacta skua of known age and sex, and its effects upon breeding and survival
TL;DR: There was no evidence of a relationship between the mercury concentrations of individuals and their breeding performance or survival, and it is suggested that dietary variation and specialization are more important than age as determinants of mercury concentrations in this species.
Journal ArticleDOI
Evidence of involvement of aluminum in causation of defective formation of eggshells and of impaired breeding in wild passerine birds
TL;DR: Aluminum was found in the bone marrow tissue of humeri of wild pied flycatchers, specifically in birds with impaired breeding, and characteristic impairments shown by the aluminum-contaminated birds agreed with the symptoms of aluminum intoxication in mammals reported in the literature.