Monitoring of heavy metal burden in wild birds at eastern/north-eastern part of Hungary

Abstract

Concentrations of different heavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb, Zn) were examined in the contour feathers of long-eared owl (Asio otus), little owl (Athene noctua), tawny owl (Strix aluco), barn owl (Tyto alba), Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus), rook (Corvus frugilegus), hooded crow (Corvus cornix), carrion crow (Corvus corone), common buzzard (Buteo buteo) and barn swallow (Hirundo rustica). The samples were collected from the Hortobágyi Madárpark (Bird Hospital Foundation) in Hungary. The bird species were classified into six groups based on their nourishment. Feathers were analysed by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The aim of our study was to determine the concentration of the above-mentioned heavy metals in the six different groups and to compare them by the groups, to find a possible connection between the concentrations and the age of birds and to get some information about the heavy metal burden of the environment. The highest As concentration was measured in little owl (0.65 ± 0.56 mg/kg). The highest Cd, Cr and Pb concentration was found in the feathers of barn swallow (0.13 ± 0.06 mg/kg; 1.69 ± 0.44 mg/kg; 5.36 ± 1.46 mg/kg), while the highest Cu and Hg concentration (65.45 ± 17.66 mg/kg; 2.72 ± 1.08 mg/kg) in sparrowhawk feathers and the highest Zn concentration in owls (157.21 ± 57.3 mg/kg). Statistically significant difference has been determined between the juvenile and adult crows in the case of Cd (p = 0.011). The higher concentration was measured in adults (0.14 ± 0.04 mg/kg) than that in juveniles (0.08 ± 0.02 mg/kg). Based on our results, the examined area is not contaminated by these heavy metals on that level, which can cause any adverse effect or poisoning in birds, so this region is safe to wildlife.

Biomonitoring of toxic metals in feathers of predatory birds from eastern regions of Hungary

“…But the highest concentration of Hg was recorded in the sample of Eurasian sparrow-hawks, the average was 2.19 ± 1.25 mg/kg. This result is similar to our previous findings (Grúz et al 2018), where the Hg concentration in Sparrow-hawk feathers was 2.72 mg/kg and it was much higher, compared to the other species, what we examined. In our recent study, the highest individual concentration was 5.43 mg/kg which is a level that could be considered to impact on the reproductive performance of that individual.…”

Feathers of Bulbulcus ibis (L.) as a non-destructive biomonitoring tool for assessment of lead pollution: A case study from various severely contaminated wetland habitats

“…The concentration of Pb in feathers of cattle egret in this study is much higher compared to other studies in USA, Egypt, Turkey and Hungary [10,20,21,25,26], India [27] and Pakistan [6]. In the present study, there is no sampling point found less than 4µg/g which is harmful to birds [6].…”

“…We found metal in similar patterns in soil pray and feathers. The use of various pesticides and fertilizers may be the cause of metal deposition in soil, prey and feather samples of birds [17][18][19][20][21][22]. The sampling site of Chandaneswar is a coastal region of North East Odisha.…”

Potential Use of Distinct Biomarkers (Trace Metals, Micronuclei and Nuclear Abnormalities) in a Heterogeneous Sample of Birds in Southern Brazil.

“…Moreover, the collection of biological samples, like feathers and blood, is considered a non-destructive procedure (Burger and Gochfeld 2000;Braga et al 2010). Some authors have made efforts to evaluate the potential of birds as bioindicators by capturing a great number of species, but they rarely succeeded in identifying a good bioindicator species for genotoxic damage (Baesse et al 2015) or in determining a species more sensitive to metal contamination (Abbasi et al 2015a; Grúz et al 2018). Other authors have restricted their attention to only one or a few species (Tsarpali et al 2020;Mukhtar et al 2020) and were able to achieve more robust conclusions, which is mainly attributed to known biological characteristics of the target species (Frixione and Rodríguez-Estrella 2020).…”

“…Regarding wildlife exposure to chemical compounds, age is an important factor to be considered (Squadrone et al 2016). Studies indicate that metal concentration in several tissues are frequently higher in adult birds (Burger and Gochfeld 1995;Leonzio et al 2009 2019) because of long-term exposure to contaminated environments and consequent bioaccumulation (Grúz et al 2018;Innangi et al 2019). As the feathers of young individuals are recently formed and are less exposed to atmospheric conditions, they have smaller concentrations of metals (Dauwe et al 2000).…”