Seabirds as regional biomonitors of legacy toxicants on an urbanized coastline

Species-Specific Characteristics Influence Contaminant Accumulation Trajectories and Signatures Across Ontogeny in Three Pelagic Shark Species

“…From the 1940s to the early 1970s, millions of pounds of DDXs and PCBs were released through the wastewater system off the Palos Verdes Peninsula into the Southern California Bight . While sediment concentrations dropped substantially after DDT production and release were banned , in the 1970s, DDXs still remain a problem for wildlife and humans in this area, and animals utilizing the nearshore areas of southern California tend to have higher proportions of DDXs in their tissues compared to individuals or species from other areas. ,, In an effort to determine possible ecological shifts in nearshore-offshore use across ontogeny, we compared DDX contribution to total contaminant loads (i.e., DDX/tOC proportion) against fork length within our three species.…”

Ecological trap for seabirds due to the contamination caused by the Fundão dam collapse, Brazil

“…Using seabirds for biomonitoring the marine environment is facilitated by their high philopatry (allows inter-annual resampling), colonial reproduction (sampling facilitation), high mobility, and fidelity to foraging areas (monitoring of remote areas) (Burger and Gochfeld, 2004). This has been used to understand environmental contamination by plastics (Avery-Gomm et al, 2012;Phillips and Waluda, 2020), heavy metals (Gatt et al, 2020;Lavers et al, 2020), and persistent organic pollutants (Adrogué et al, 2019;Clatterbuck et al, 2018). However, the usefulness of seabirds as biomonitors also shows the level of impacts on the group, which is considered the most threatened among the entire Class Aves (Croxall et al, 2012), and their K-strategy (i.e.…”

Intraspecific variation of trace elements in the kelp gull (Larus dominicanus): influence of age, sex and location

“…The sampling of birds in coastal areas for environmental monitoring of contaminants is hindered by the high mobility of the seabirds combined with the low density of the populations ( Clatterbuck et al., 2018 ). In addition, the use of invasive approaches for sampling the birds is also ethically questionable ( Lodenius and Solonen 2013 ).…”